January, 2019

• 31 January

  Get Smart

  

  So-called smart devices are invading the point of sale at an increasing pace. They bring undoubted advantages, but also a few complications. Judging by the number of times Fiserv Inc. chief executive Jeffery Yabuki and First Data Corp. CEO Frank Bisignano mentioned Clover last month during their joint announcement of …
• 1 January

  Cash Discounts: Surcharges by Any Other Name?

  

  Cash discounts are all the rage as merchants seek to lower payment card acceptance costs. But critics say cash discounts all too often are surcharges in disguise. Few topics last year drew more interest from independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers than cash discounts. Sessions about the pricing strategy were …

December, 2018

• 1 December

  POS Terminal? What’s That?

  

  Cloud connectivity, apps, and features beyond payments are shaping the next evolution of the point-of-sale terminal. With all the discussion surrounding merchant adoption of point-of-sale systems and integrated payments, one might think the days of the conventional POS terminal are numbered. Their days as an isolated piece of equipment with …

November, 2018

• 1 November

  The Long And Bumpy Road to Crypto Acceptance

  

  ISOs have been slow to jump on the bandwagon for digital currency because the list of barriers to mainstream use remains too long. Merchants such as Overstock.com and Newegg.com may be leading the charge to accept Bitcoin and myriad other crypto­currencies, but if crypto is to make serious progress toward …
• 1 November

  EMV Finds a Seat in Restaurants

  

  Forget an a la carte approach to point-of-sale services. EMV has trained restaurant operators to want inclusive features to help run their businesses. Ask point-of-sale system experts to describe the state of EMV acceptance among restaurants, and their choice of words may not be what many expect, or would hope, …

September, 2018

• 30 September

  Token Economics

  

  The major payments networks have been in the tokenization business for four years now. With digital payments set to explode, how long can they keep giving away the store? The technology for rendering card-account numbers into random strings of digits has been around for decades, but with the kickoff of …
• 2 September

  A New Age for Underwriting

  

  Vetting a new merchant takes a lot of work, but the plethora of nontraditional data may make it a little easier. How do you tell the difference between a bot applying for a merchant account and an actual human doing it? The answer might lie in social-media profiles and a …

June, 2018

• 29 June

  A Cloudy Future for the Point of Sale

  

  Backed by cloud-based networks, tablet POS systems scramble to find the preferred configuration for merchants. Eight years on, the notion of tablets as the future of point-of-sale systems can be dispelled. Specifically, the form factor is not the critical element in the ascendancy of POS systems and how they connect …
• 1 June

  Behind the M&A Boom

  

  To explain today’s mergers and acquisitions in merchant acquiring, mix a hefty dose of technology and a dash of foreign spices with traditional flavors like greater scale. And don’t forget a little fear. For years, greater scale seemed to be the big driver of mergers and acquisitions in the merchant-acquiring …

May, 2018

• 1 May

  What Ails the Mobile Wallets?

  

  General-purpose mobile wallets have yet to convince most merchants and consumers that they have real value. Can that change, and if so, when? The hype over mobile wallets hasn’t ceased ever since Google Checkout launched way back in 2006, and it’s only become louder since Apple Inc. unveiled Apple Pay …