Visa gives CardSystems the ax

Visa USA Inc. is cutting ties with the payment-processing company that left 40 million credit and debit card accounts vulnerable to hackers in one of the biggest breaches of consumer data security.

CardSystems Solutions Inc. "has not corrected, and cannot at this point correct, the failure to provide proper data security for Visa accounts," Rosetta Jones, a Visa vice president, said in a statement.

She said banks that issue Visa cards would have until Oct. 31 to cease having CardSystems process payments.

Representatives for Atlanta-based CardSystems did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Visa's statement said that while CardSystems has taken some remediating actions since the breach was disclosed, those could not overcome the fact that CardSystems had inappropriately held on to data - purportedly for "research purposes" - in violation of Visa's security rules.