July, 2017

• 1 July

  What Whole Foods Could Mean for Amazon—And Payments

  

  We were just wrapping up production of this issue when word came that Amazon.com Inc. had offered $13.7 billion to buy Whole Foods Market Inc. The deal, which is expected to close some time between now and the end of the year, will certainly embed e-commerce kingpin Amazon in the …

June, 2017

• 1 June

  Tokens of Appreciation, Indeed

  Tokenization is nothing new. Various companies have for years offered the service, which replaces the actual card credentials a thief needs to make illicit purchases—primary account number, card-verification value, expiration date—with a random string of characters for digital transactions. But what is new is that Visa and Mastercard have finally …

May, 2017

• 1 May

  EMV in the United States: A Post Mortem

  

  The global chip card standard known as EMV became a reality for U.S merchants, acquirers, and issuers in October 2015. That’s when the liability for counterfeit card transactions at the point of sale shifted, by network rules, from issuers to merchants if the merchants weren’t prepared to accept EMV cards. …

April, 2017

• 1 April

  What To Do With the CFPB?

  

  Among the legacies of that explosion of financial regulation known as the Dodd-Frank Act is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up expressly to counter what was seen, in the wake of the financial meltdown of 2007-09, as the overweening power of banks and allied interests. The CFPB …

March, 2017

• 1 March

  A Divided Front Over Durbin

  

  With Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and a Republican in the White House, banks bigger than $10 billion in assets are licking their chops. That’s because their long campaign to get rid of the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act now actually …

February, 2017

• 1 February

  Want Bitcoin? Call Your Broker

  

  Last summer, Digital Transactions published a cover story about Bitcoin headlined “Masterpiece or Showpiece?” In the article, freelance writer Bailey Reutzel pointed out that while the cryptocurrency was invented as a medium of exchange, it has developed instead more like a collectible—something of value that behaves like an investment. That …

January, 2017

• 1 January

  Interesting Times, Indeed

  

  This month, the nation bids adieu to the Obama Administration and ushers in the administration of Donald Trump. The new President is promising sweeping change, and he will have at least four years to bring it about. He’s likely, though, to begin wielding the broom on his first day in …

December, 2016

• 1 December

  Open Platforms And the IoT

  

  Our cover story this month describes the security issues surrounding the so-called Internet of Things. That’s the increasingly intricate network of devices using the Internet to control everything from garage doors to thermostat settings. In many cases, payments flow over this IoT, and therein lies the problem. As our story …

November, 2016

• 1 November

  A Way Forward?

  

  This month we present the 10th edition of our annual 10 Most Pressing Issues in E-Payments. We’re sure you’ll find this interesting, if somewhat unsettling, reading, and no doubt you can think of a few issues that aren’t in the current ranking. So can we. In fact, we can think …

October, 2016

• 1 October

  Is Same-Day Fast Enough?

  

  By the time you read this, the nation’s automated clearing house network will have been processing same-day credit settlements for a little more than a week. That may not sound revolutionary, but in many respects, it is. For one thing, the ACH has speeded up clearing time pretty significantly. Credit …