January, 2021

• 1 January

  Paysafe’s $9 Billion Go-Public Gambit

  

  A relatively novel method for private companies to go public gained momentum in the payments industry last month with the announcement that London-based processor Paysafe Group Holdings Ltd. will be acquired by a group put together by Las Vegas-based Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. in a deal valued at approximately $9 …

December, 2020

• 1 December

  Payments 3.0: Covid-19 And the New American Wallet

  

  We are all living digitally infused lives as a result of the pandemic, and as the promise of a vaccine suggests that this may end in the coming year, the question is: will the changes stick? One area of keen interest to retailers and the payments industry is mobile payments, …
• 1 December

  Security Notes: EMV Goes ECC

  

  This cryptic headline is quite telling, and it deserves proper attention from the payment community. Payment people know that EMV replaced magnetic-stripe technology, and that it sometimes takes uncomfortably long seconds to get the transaction approved. But few appreciate its big, innovative step in e-commerce. Instead of repeated exposure of …
• 1 December

  Visa Hits Back

  

  Visa Inc. isn’t taking it lying down. The card network last month delivered a rebuke to the Department of Justice over the government’s antitrust lawsuit attempting to block Visa’s $5.3-billion acquisition of Plaid Inc., calling the lawsuit “legally flawed and contradicted by the facts.” The Department of Justice, which had …

November, 2020

• 2 November

  Payments 3.0: The 2020 Election And Payments

  

  As of mid-October, Joe Biden is heavily favored to win the presidential election and the Democrats are likely to take control of both houses of Congress. If the current trajectory plays out (let’s pause for a moment and recognize that anything could happen), the payments world will find itself in …
• 2 November

  Security Notes: Should You Worry About Quantum?

  

  Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Visa and JPMorgan Chase are gearing up to face the threat of quantum. Indeed, the drumbeat is getting louder. A new class of computing machines is coming down the pike, and much as present-day computers upended the payment industry, so will the …
• 2 November

  Is FedNow Moving Fast Enough?

  

  The announcement from the Federal Reserve last month of a pilot for the FedNow real-time payments service may represent an important stage in the development of a service not expected to go live until 2023 at the earliest. But observers caution rival services have already made headway with key market …

October, 2020

• 1 October

  Payments 3.0: Will Contactless Be A Covid-Driven Fad?

  

  It seems obvious that Covid-19 would lead to an increase in the adoption of contactless payments, and it has. But this still may not be the tipping point for tap-and-pay transactions. Contactless payments are a two-sided coin. They require both consumers and merchants to adopt them, so a variety of …
• 1 October

  Security Notes: Digital Transactions Without the Internet

  

  “When the Internet fades, payment dies. Alas, society runs on payment. And payment continuity is a must.” Central banks around the world recognize this very challenge, and search for answers. The importance of this topic was recently recognized in the International Conference IEMTRONICS held in British Columbia Canada, where it …
• 1 October

  Scraping Away Old Ways

  

  The data networks that connect payments and other financial apps to users’ bank accounts are scrambling to standardize data access by moving to application programming interfaces and away from an older, cruder form of access known in the business as “screen scraping.” The effort comes as financial apps gain popularity …