Payment systems

Anyone legally residing in the EU would have the right to open a basic payment account, under a new law passed by European Parliament on Tuesday.

Anyone buying a prepay card in Romania in future will have to submit their personal data, their name and ID number respectively, according to a bill adopted on Thursday by the Romanian government.

The aim is to allow Romania's intelligence services to identify prepay card holders, if a judge decides it is necessary.

The termination of support for the operating system Windows XP could pose security threats to the ATMs. 

A survey of CNN Money shows that 95% of world's ATMs still use this operating system. As of April 8 Microsoft stops the technical support for it, which means that there will be no security updates and the ATMs could become an easy target for hackers. 

Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture will provide fuel discount vouchers to farmers from 16 May to 20 June, 2014.

The fees that banks charge retailers for processing shoppers' payments would be capped under new rules voted by European Parliament on Thursday.

Measures to make online payments safer, reduce costs and give users more choice were adopted by a separate vote on the same day, an official press release on the EP website states.

The Quebec provincial police arrested on Thursday four Canadian citizens of Bulgarian origin for alleged ATM fraud. 

Their names are Vassilina Dimitrova, 48, Borislav Petrov, 53, Iren Vasilev Atanasov, 42 and the alleged ringleader Martin Antonov Kuzov, 52.

The arrests took place near Montreal and Toronto. Four other suspects are still on the loose. 

Cyprus Finance Minister Harris Georgiades told the country’s national broadcaster on Monday that he expects all domestic capital controls to be lifted by the end of spring.

The number of bank card frauds in Europe has started rising again in 2012.

A survey of the European Central Bank (ECB) shows that the frauds had started increasing for the first time since 2008, mostly due to the increase in online payments.