His investigation takes him to the City of London and the heart of the credit card industry.
The Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard was created by the credit card industry to protect the viability of their brand.
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One of the most common marketing ploys of the credit card industry is to offer 0% interest on balance transfers.
Throughout the credit card industry, spending limits are on the way down.
For example, in the credit card industry, there are 1, 000 rules regarding the use of so-called firewalls that block unwarranted access to sensitive information.
Wednesday's hearing stems from an investigation of the credit card industry completed in September by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the auditing arm of Congress.
The credit card industry suffered a strong fall in share prices during mid-May as regulation in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill potentially curbed debit card fees charged to retailers.
The credit card industry has among the lightest regulation in the nation, and lawmakers appear ready to give federal regulators more power to tame companies' lending policies if necessary.
Analysts highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal report note that improving confidence on the part of the consumer has helped boost revenue growth expectations for the credit card industry.
But this brought a strident response from the credit card industry in January, which argued that only 8% of customers were offered an unsolicited increase in their credit limit in 2009.
This has already happened in the credit card industry.
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The CARD Act, which significantly increased transparency throughout the credit card industry, has therefore proven a complete success in its yet young life and will likely remain in its current form moving forward.
Lawmakers in Washington have recently taken aim at the credit card industry, and whether you agree with the spirit of the law, we believe the outcome will be less credit available to consumers.
On Wednesday the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations holds the first of several hearings to examine business practices of the credit card industry, focusing on how credit issuers apply interest rates and other fees.
King says that most of his clients are retailers, which are compelled by credit card industry audits to protect the financial data that travel on their networks, but airports are high on his prospect list.
He asks the chief executive of the Association for Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), which represents the credit card industry, what the banks are thinking of lending money to people who will never be able to afford to pay it back.
Square was invented to cut through the complexities of a different network: the credit card payments industry.
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Many small businesses complain they get little support from law enforcement or the credit-card industry once they are hit.
Like the broader credit-card industry, delinquencies on store-brand or private-label cards are slowing.
"It amounted to the sort of front-end screen the credit-card industry does at the point of sale, " says assistant IRS commissioner Ted Brown.
But representatives from the credit-card industry denied they target vulnerable consumers.
This has not stopped the credit-card industry from lobbying furiously for Congress to make it more difficult for people to escape their debts by filing for bankruptcy.
The American Senate passed legislation, in a 95-5 vote, that promises to reform the credit-card industry by, among other things, banning practices such as sharp rises in interest rates.
While most of the financial activity that now takes place on smartphones involves people engaging in transactions with their bank, the credit-card industry has spent millions of dollars to issue new plastic with the contact-less chip that speeds the check-out process.
The deals are yet another sign of the stiff competition in the credit-card industry at a time when consumers are more cautious about spending, says John Grund, a partner at First Annapolis Consulting, an advisory firm focusing on the electronic-payments industry.
The lawsuit brought against the two credit card behemoths appears likely to force the industry to restructure card agreements in ways that will lower costs and increase ways to pay for millions of consumers.
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To gird against this, the major credit-card companies in 2006 formed an industry group called the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, which establishes minimum technical protections for businesses that accept credit cards.
This means the social network has passed an audit on protecting user data, and could enter the traditional payments industry alongside credit card companies.
Money Box's Martin Lewis spoke to a range of credit card companies, banks and industry bodies, few of whom recognised the cancellation process was different.
Misplaced confidence might be a consequence of the financial services industry, which handles credit card hacking briskly and with little out-of-pocket cost to the consumer.
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