After chastising the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for way it handled itself in its 2015 lawsuit against allegedly fraudulent debt collectors and their payment processors, a federal judge on Friday threw out the CFPB’s claims against the processors. The case is unusual in that Judge Richard W. Story of U.S. …
Read More »At 2 Million Downloads, Chicago’s Transit System Sees an Appetite for Mobile Payment
A pioneering mobile-payment wallet for mass transit has reached a milestone. Chicago’s Ventra app has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it became available in November 2015, according to an announcement Monday from Cubic Transportation Systems, the San Diego-based company that developed the app. Commuters have bought almost …
Read More »Payments Firms Cancel Accounts for White Supremacist Groups After Charlottesville Violence
In the wake of violent clashes last weekend between white supremacist groups and counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., payments companies are cutting off access to their systems that supremacist groups use to accept donations. Pressure on the payments firms began building not long after a female counter-demonstrator was fatally struck by …
Read More »One Year Later, Grocer New Seasons Says Faster EMV Has Made Everybody Happy
It’s been a year since the so-called faster EMV burst on the scene at some grocery stores on the West Coast, and so far officials at the chain that owns the two store brands involved in that launch couldn’t be more pleased with how the technology has smoothed out EMV’s …
Read More »The NRF Expects Eight in 10 Small Retailers To Have EMV Terminals by Year’s End
Smaller retailers haven’t yet closed the EMV-acceptance gap with big ones, but they are making progress on installing EMV chip card readers at the point of sale, according to findings from a recent survey for the National Retail Federation. The online poll found that 60% of small brick-and-mortar retailers had …
Read More »Cyberattacks Doubled in Just Two Years, Authentication Provider Says
ThreatMetrix Inc., a provider of digital-identity and authentication services, reports that its network detected and stopped 144 million cyberattacks in the second quarter, a 100% increase from 2015’s second quarter. ThreatMetrix says its Digital Identity Network from April through June also stopped 300 million bot attacks in which hackers take …
Read More »Marriott Will Accept Alipay As Part of an Ambitious Joint Venture With China’s Alibaba
Chinese tourism abroad has already taken off, and it’s expected to grow ever larger in coming years, lifting sales for merchants in the United States and other parts of the world. The latest company to set itself up to cash in on the trend is Marriott International Inc., which on …
Read More »The Latest Funding Data Show Artificial Intelligence Is Turning Out To Be Very Real
Artificial-intelligence technology, on which a number of payments applications have begun to rely over the past year or so, just keeps getting hotter. Nearly 700 funding deals for AI startups were concluded in 2016, up 33% from 2015, according to a report released this week by CBInsights, a New York …
Read More »WEX’s Fraud Spike Puts the Spotlight on EMV-Induced Skimmer Placements on Fuel Pumps
Fraudsters are hitting fuel pumps hard as they hunt for the dwindling number of places where they can take advantage of magnetic-stripe payments while EMV chip card acceptance takes hold in U.S. stores and restaurants. Last week, fleet-fueling payment card specialist WEX Inc. revealed that it increased its second-quarter provision …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Rewards Programs and Millennials: A Marriage Built on Mobility
Millennials don’t care for or trust the traditional advertising tactics that have been a staple of the payments industry for eons—84% say they don’t like them at all. For consumer-facing brands, the implications of these findings are quite significant—particularly since cultivating and rewarding customer loyalty is a foundational marketing element. …
Read More »