Visa Banks Accept TJX Offer

Framingham, Mass. The banks that issue credit-card loans through Visa agreed to a $40.9 million reimbursement from TJX Cos. for exposing consumers' personal information to hackers, the retailer said Thursday.

Banks representing more than 95% of eligible U.S. Visa accounts affected by the breach accepted the offer, TJX said. The offer required an 80% approval rate to pass.

After initially disclosing the data heist in January, TJX said in March that at least 45.7 million cards were exposed to possible fraud in a breach of its computer systems that began in July 2005. Recent court filings by some banks that sued TJX put the number of cards affected at more than 100 million, based on estimates by officials with Visa and MasterCard, who were deposed in the lawsuit.

The company will pay Visa's member banks within a week.