Thursday , September 19, 2024

John Stewart

Starting as an editor on Bank Network News at Faulkner & Gray, John ultimately played a key role in starting, editing, and publishing many of F&G's flagship publications, including Credit Card Management, Card Technology, Card Marketing, and Collections & Credit Risk. Before co-founding Boland Hill Media, John was a group publisher at Thomson Media responsible for a $10 million division embracing magazines, newsletters, and Web sites.

A Financial-Industry Standards Body Releases Rules Aimed at Tightening Mobile Security

Mobile payments are booming in places like China and India, but in the United States, not so much. Year after year, one reason that keeps popping up in surveys is concerns about security, and on Tuesday a major standards body announced a measure aimed squarely at those fears. The Accredited …

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Data Breaches Register on the Stock Market, Too, And Payments Firms Are Hardest Hit

Data breaches bring a slew of bad consequences for the victim, not the least of which are the costs of lost business, remediation, and, possibly, litigation. But for publicly held entities, there’s an additional risk: a lasting hit to the share price. For 24 companies whose shares are traded on …

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Bitcoin Has Calmed Down—And Fees Have Gotten Cheaper—But Will Merchants Bite?

For all the gyrations Bitcoin and its enthusiasts have experienced over the past 12 months, the digital currency has managed to trace a relatively calm track lately. It remains, however, an acquired taste for users, and while some independent sales organizations have begun efforts in recent weeks to sell it …

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Badran Exits As President of Alipay U.S. As Alipay Enjoys a Booming Summer Overseas

July and August are big vacation months in China, and this year Chinese travelers’ use of the Alipay mobile-payment service boomed as users ventured abroad, according to figures released Wednesday.  In related news, China’s Ant Financial Services Group confirmed on Wednesday that Souheil Badran, who had headed up Alipay’s expansion …

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Fingerprint Scanning Will Have to Move Over for Facial And Voice ID, Research Says

With mobile-payments volume increasing while confidence in passwords slumps, researchers are predicting big growth for mobile authentication via biometric technology such as facial or voice recognition. In one forecast, from the United Kingdom-based firm Juniper Research, the number of mobile users authenticating themselves by such technology will grow over the …

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First It Was Trading Through Cash App. Now Square Patents a Network for Crypto Acceptance

The business of getting merchants to accept cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin has started to attract independent sales organizations and payments-tech firms alike, and now Square Inc. has jumped in with a proposed service that some experts say could help the payments-technology powerhouse grab a share of online volume. The U.S. Patent …

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Western Union Expands Mobile And Online Transfers to Three More Global Regions

The Western Union Co., which has been expanding its digital footprint for several years, announced a major move on Wednesday into Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Online and mobile money transfers will start over the next few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, the company said, with service already …

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An Activist Social Network Alleges PayPal Is Still Processing for Supremacist Groups

Reacting to violent clashes a year ago in Charlottesville, Va., between white supremacist groups and counter demonstrators, several major payment systems shut down access for supremacist organizations that used the systems to process donations. But now a social network devoted to activist causes says PayPal Holdings Inc. is still processing …

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Why the Electronic Transactions Association Is Focusing on Canada

In response to Canada’s moves to introduce further regulation of its payments industry, the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Transactions Association said this week it is “expanding” its advocacy effort into that country. So far, the ETA’s effort includes hiring a lobbyist to represent the interests of Canadian payments companies and U.S. …

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At Its Three-Year Mark, Samsung Pay Cites 2,000 Partners And a Billion-Plus Payments

Samsung Pay launched in South Korea three years ago Monday, and on Tuesday Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. marked the anniversary by releasing some numbers for the mobile-payments platform. Widely known as one of three “Pays” that rely on near-field communication technology for in-store transactions (Apple Pay and Google Pay are …

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