Each year, Digital Transactions uses this space to lay out the problems impacting the payments industry. This time, the Covid-19 pandemic has inflected our coverage across a wide range of issues. The solutions will have to be far from business as usual. 2020 has been one of those years you …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday announced the rollout in 15 geographic markets of Visa Tap to Phone, which allows consumers to initiate a transaction simply by tapping a contactless card to a merchant’s NFC-enabled mobile device.  Tap to Phone is now live in numerous countries throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia …

Efficient and fast, the funky-looking barcodes are having their day in the sun as the Covid-19 pandemic channels consumers toward contactless payments. It has become commonplace to observe that the Covid-19 pandemic has energized contactless payments, and all the numbers seem to bear that out. But contactless at the point …

Momentum is building fast for card acceptance on ordinary mobile phones. And now Apple could be the next player in this increasingly important game. The drive to turn mobile devices into point-of-sale terminals without requiring a plug-in card-acceptance device, such as a dongle, got a big shot in the arm …

The guide has a slightly different name now, but the same purpose—to seek out and describe the nonbank players, apart from the big networks, that are rewriting the rules for the digital exchange of value. Since 2004, Digital Transactions has traced the course of payments innovation through its nimblest practitioners—the …

It seems there’s nothing hazy about the future of cloud-based POS. What’s driving the trend? Cloud computing is a part of daily life. Whether it’s banking online, making a P2P payment, streaming movies on a smart television, or sending an email (think Gmail), most software applications, data storage, and networking …

A new PCI standard for using off-the-shelf mobile phones and tablets to accept tap-and-go payments should open the door for more contactless transactions. How much more is another question. It’s the ultimate conven­ience for a harried merchant: just whip out a regular smart phone or tablet and ask the customer …

Proponents of credit card surcharging have received a Christmas present in the form of an Oklahoma attorney general’s official opinion declaring the state’s no-surcharging law unconstitutionally restricts free speech. The development means surcharge bans remain in only four states. State Sen. Michael Brooks, D-Oklahoma City, asked Attorney General Mike Hunter …

What’s keeping you up at night? If you said nothing, you’re lucky. Here’s a list of the biggest issues troubling most payments executives today. We live in a world full of tribulation and turbulence, and the payments business is no exception. Herewith, we offer our annual catalog of the 10 …

The sales-agent model is far from obsolete. Agents just need patience and the right training, experts say. Other sales models may garner more attention, but the traditional sales agent continues to have a place and a future in merchant services. Even when it appears that every processor is courting software …