Walmart Sues Visa

(RTTNews) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) has filed a lawsuit against Visa Inc. (V) saying that the payments network service provider has forced the retailer to verify transactions with signatures rather than the chip-and-PIN protocol.

Wal-Mart says that Visa does not allow it to complete a transaction using PINS, instead has made it compulsory for the retailer to ask customers to use a signature when they use chip-based debit cards. Wal-Mart has to pay more to Visa for signature transactions than it does for those that use a PIN.

According to banks, the latest chip cards are designed in a way to create a unique code for each transaction, which makes its nearly impossible for hackers to store data for later use.

Wal-Mart claims that the chip-and-PIN protocol is more secure and would allow it to route transactions across less-expensive networks.