With interest in cryptocurrency increasing at the two major card networks, it was only a matter of time before one of them launched a consulting service specializing in the subject. Visa Inc. early Wednesday announced it is launching its Global Crypto Advisory Practice as part of its existing Visa Consulting …
Read More »With At-Pump EMV a Work in Progress, Providers Look to Mask Card Transactions With Encryption
The switchover of gasoline stations in the United States to the EMV chip card standard has been a work in progress, but now products are emerging that can secure card data at the pump through a technology known as point-to-point encryption. Payments provider ACI Worldwide Inc. early Tuesday said it …
Read More »Tassat Scores Western Alliance Bank for Its Bank-Based Blockchain-Payment Technology
Stablecoins have come in for government scrutiny in recent weeks, but use of this blockchain-based technology to enable immediate business-to-business payments between bank clients is moving forward nonetheless. Late Thursday, Tassat Group Inc. announced Phoenix-based Western Alliance Bank will use the company’s TassatPay technology to allow business clients to pay …
Read More »How Square’s Name Change to Block Hints at an Even Stronger Push for Bitcoin
The word “block” may have a number of meanings, but for Square Inc. it could mean a stronger emphasis on blockchain. That’s how some observers interpret the company’s announcement Wednesday afternoon that it is changing its name effective Dec. 10 to Block Inc., a dozen years after its founding as …
Read More »Consumers Are Largely ‘in the Dark’ About How Much Fintech Apps Access Their Data
Consumers have relied more heavily on payments apps and other fintech technologies since the onset of the pandemic, but few are aware of how much control these apps have over consumer data, according to a survey released Wednesday by The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC. In fact, consumer confidence in …
Read More »In Cyber Monday’s Shopping Frenzy, Smart Phones Cooled off While BNPL Took off
Cyber Monday 2021 is in the books, and a number of lessons have emerged from the biggest online-shopping day of the year regarding how consumers are spending. They didn’t use their mobile phones as much as expected, buy now, pay later picked up some momentum, and inflation asserted itself in …
Read More »Black Friday And Cyber Monday Will Boost Online Sales, But at a Price in False Declines
Shoppers have flooded online shopping sites in response to the pandemic, and now stores are expecting a further bonanza of e-commerce sales as consumers flock to sites for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. But while these two annual shopping extravaganzas will boost sales, they also are likely to have …
Read More »Payhawk Says a $112-Million Round Will Propel It Into New Markets, Including the U.S.
An ambitious payments startup clinched a big funding round on Tuesday and said its sights are now set on the U.S. market as well as other countries. London-based Payhawk Ltd. secured $112 million in a Series B round led by San Francisco-based Greenoaks, valuing the 3-year-old company at $570 million. …
Read More »Phishing Attacks Have Reached an Alarming Level, With a Record High in July
It’s well-known by now that e-commerce activity is on a sharp upswing, but the underside of that trend is that fraud is rising fast, as well. Phishing attacks, for example, hit a record high in July, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which on Monday released its report for the …
Read More »A New X9 Standard Seeks to Help Firms Fend off Theft of Sensitive Financial Data
As data compromises of various sorts continue to threaten the security of digital payments, the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. this week issued a standard it says covers both data protection and breach notification. The new standard, “Financial and Personal Data Protection and Breach Notification,” also known as X9.141, is …
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