I'm sure this is directly connected to the outrage at NFC payments being disabled in CVS, etc. - effectively, they've become a target.
If they weren't a target because of the NFC stuff then they would have become a target because they're a payment platform. The only difference is probably how quickly the hack happened (or how public it became). If it had been the Chinese or Russians they possibly would have just pilfered and sold personal data.
They're not just supposed to be a payments provider. They're going to ask people to actually link their bank accounts so that the merchants don't have to pay credit card fees.
Hacking as retribution for personal data mining? Not likely. Sounds like an opportunity to get details from a financial transaction application while it's still green.
That said, they're supposed to be a payments provider. They should be able to cope with being a target.