This just gets worse. The common thread, seems to be Visa and international network connections – but this Royal Bank problem takes us back to fraud. It says that 65,000 cards have been compromised and cancelled by the issuers.

As asked here, "So what’s really going on? Is there a security breach or a vendor issue?"

Given there are now two Banks involved, I would suggest there must have been a compromise at a payment / acquirer centre, probably in the US, and there will be more Banks involved before this is over.

More to come!

Massive Citibank Alert: UPDATE – Consumerist

UPDATE: Bill Hansley told BoingBoing that the Royal Bank of Canada is having similar issues.I’m a US customer of Royal Bank of Canada / Centura, and they’re having similar issues. The word from them was that Visa corp told them that several thousand (65,000 according to the service desk people at my grocery store, who knew about this as well) *cards* (not accounts) had been compromised and were cancelled Saturday and replacements mailed. My card was affected, my wife’s, who’s on the same account, was not. I wonder how many other banks were affected?