September, 2019

• 3 September

  The Networks’ Shopping Spree

  

  With fintechs nipping at their heels, the payment card networks are buying up companies big and small in a range of industries. How far will the networks venture beyond their core business—and at what price? Mergers and acquisitions tend to come in fits and starts, and lately M&A activity involving …

July, 2019

• 1 July

  The Bill-Pay Revolution

  

  For banks, introducing real-time bill pay is not enough. They must also spruce up the online and mobile experience. Some are starting to, but can they finally leave the biller-direct model in the dust? It’s been a long, steady retreat for banks in online bill payment. Since 2010, banks’ share …

June, 2019

• 1 June

  A Touchy Subject

  

  The ducks are lining up for U.S. contactless payments with dual-interface cards, but they’re not all in a row yet. Outdated POS terminals and certification issues still stand in the way. Forget the swipe, and even the dip. Tapping plastic cards is the wave of the future, in the eyes …

May, 2019

• 1 May

  11th Annual Field Guide to Alternative Payments

  

  Churn is still the overarching theme in a dynamic market dominated by mobile options and eyeing digital currency. You can tell a lot about the dynamism of a market by how often its players turn over—how many new companies enter the market from year to year and how many fail …

April, 2019

• 1 April

  The Amazing Disappearing Checkout

  

  Amazon’s tech-laden Go stores are disrupting in-store checkout. But as other merchants look to follow suit, it’s becoming clear there are lots of ways to get the checkout to check out. Consumers so loathe waiting in line at checkout  that half of all shoppers avoid entering stores with long lines, …

March, 2019

• 1 March

  Fiserv’s Big Bite

  

  Its $22-billion megamerger agreement with First Data sets it up to be a dominant player on both the bank and merchant sides of payments. How will the industry react? Executives at Fiserv Inc. all but popped champagne corks on Feb. 7 when they spoke to industry analysts about the Brookfield, …

January, 2019

• 31 January

  The New Realism About Blockchain

  

  Unbridled enthusiasm for distributed ledgers has given way to a more sober assessment of the technology’s probable role in payments. A few years ago, evangelists for blockchain confidently predicted its widespread adoption to facilitate faster, more secure, and economical payment transactions.  The type of transaction didn’t matter. Whether it was …
• 1 January

  Hitting the Accelerator

  

  Talk about mobile payments. Card companies, automakers, and merchants are readying technology to make cars a payment method as familiar as plastic—and phones. An informal consortium of payments companies, car makers, automotive suppliers, and merchants is trying to make it easier, and safer, for consumers to buy fuel, order meals, …

December, 2018

• 1 December

  Battling the Bots

  

  There are plenty of good bots out there, but the bad ones are making life difficult for financial institutions and merchants. And it’s only getting worse. What’s to be done? To paraphrase Glinda, the good witch in L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels and the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: …

November, 2018

• 1 November

  12th Annual The 10 Most Pressing Issues in E-Payments

  

  If understanding a problem is the first step toward a remedy, here are 10 first steps for the executives who must grapple with the complexities of payments every day. Well, here we are with our annual list of the 10 issues causing the most sleepless nights for payments executives these …