Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
A filing Tuesday by First Data Corp. in the wake of its recent initial public offering of stock paints a picture of a payment processor growing in many areas but still carrying a heavy debt load and challenged on profitability. The filing, Atlanta-based First Data’s quarterly report to the Securities …
Read More »The Double-Edged Sword of Tokenization Helps Issuers But Also Poses a Subtle Threat
By John Stewart The rise of tokenization into a major payments business helps enable enterprises like Apple Pay and Android Pay but could also pose a threat to the financial institutions that have historically issued the majority of the cards consumers use most often. That threat lies in the fact …
Read More »The ABA Says the FBI Was ‘Receptive To Getting It Right’ About PINs and EMV Cards
The American Bankers Association seems to have persuaded the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do something the Bureau rarely ever does, at least in public: change its mind. The FBI’s original position was the consumers should enter a personal identification number whenever possible when using their new EMV chip cards. …
Read More »FBI Notice Warning Consumers To Use PINs With EMV Cards Gone; ABA Protest the Cause?
A public service announcement the FBI posted Thursday warning consumers that the new EMV chip cards “are vulnerable to exploitation by fraudsters” and urging them to enter a PIN instead of a signature during EMV credit card transactions was removed Friday, apparently at the behest of the leading banker trade …
Read More »Why a Regional Bank Is Going With Chip-And-PIN for Its EMV Credit Cards
By Jim Daly They’re few and far between, but another U.S. issuer, regional banking company First Niagara Financial Group Inc., has committed itself to issuing EMV credit cards of the chip-and-PIN variety. Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara announced just before the U.S. EMV liability shift took effect that it will convert …
Read More »Consumers Not Quite so Enamored With Debit Cards as Before, TSYS Study Finds
Debit cards are still Americans’ favorite payment type, but they’re not quite as popular as they were two years ago, according to new survey findings from Total System Services Inc. (TSYS). The payment processor’s fifth annual Consumer Payment Choice Study, which in June surveyed more than 1,000 consumers with at least …
Read More »Merchant Groups Get in Last Licks About EMV Before Liability Shift Sets in Thursday
U.S. merchants and their trade groups have been less than thrilled with how the banks and card networks have managed the EMV rollout, and on Tuesday they got in one last blast before the liability shift occurs two days from now. n In the conference call, Mallory Duncan, senior vice …
Read More »With EMV’s Big Date Just 10 Days off, Consumers Say They’re Not Ready for It
The three-legged stool of merchants, payments companies, and consumers necessary to enable EMV chip card acceptance may be a little wobbly in the early going if the results of a new consumer survey are any indication. Fifty-nine percent of consumers say they are not ready for EMV, finds a survey …
Read More »As Criminals Redouble Their Efforts, Merchants Sustain an Eye-Popping Jump in Fraud
Merchants contend with fraud all the time, but the 2015 edition of the LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud study has found that their fraud costs are tallying 1.32% of revenue in 2015, a whopping 94% increase from the 0.68% rate in 2014. All categories of merchants in the LexisNexis Risk …
Read More »Only 27% of Merchants Are EMV Ready, but a Surge May Be Coming
Expectations of easily getting merchants ready to accept EMV credit and debit cards appear to be misaligned with the reality of the terminalization program. That’s one finding from a survey released Thursday by The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments consultancy. To accept EMV chip cards, merchants must have compatible …
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