Last week payment processor Square Inc. announced its Square Installments service which provides loans of up to $10,000 to customers of its merchant clients. Like all similar services, it splits a consumer’s repayment of large purchases into fixed monthly amounts. Installment solutions are not unique in payments, far from it. But …

In the February, 2017, issue of Digital Transactions, Steve Mott argues that the U.S. EMV migration was a misguided, poorly planned, and poorly executed effort. In his article, “The Great EMV Hangover,” he considers the migration to be a failure, writing, “As 2016 wound to a close, nothing short of …

During the last 20 years, I’ve worked for, consulted for, partnered with, or analyzed hundreds of payments companies and thousands of other firms that are in some way connected with payments companies, either as customers, prospects, or partners. Many of those companies have been highly successful, some explosively so. Others …

Vantiv Inc.’s deal to acquire Mercury Payment Systems LLC was noteworthy for its size—the deal carried a $1.65 billion price tag—but it was also exemplary of a key industry transformation from distribution-centric to product-centric acquiring. For decades, the merchant-acquiring industry has revolved around selling the services of barely differentiated payment …