The key to higher acceptance rates for cards, lower fees for merchants, and better security lies in moving the point of sale from hardware to software, says Sam Shawki. There is no doubt that the continued progress in moving to digital forms of transactions has made a big impact on …

Widely touted as a potent data-masking tool, encryption has been slow to take hold in the payments industry, despite a continuing plague of data breaches. Here’s what’s going on to change that. Kmart, Arby’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Hyatt Hotels.  Those are just some of the merchants that reported data breaches …

Suddenly, person-to-person payments services are gaining utility beyond just paying a person via a smart phone. What gives? So you thought these newfangled person-to-person payment services were meant only to replace cash with smart-phone apps that enable individuals to send and receive money electronically? Think again. All of a sudden, …

Seldom in the history of electronic payments has the spotlight shone quite so intensely on small merchants as it does now. Everybody, it seems, wants to sign up the so-called SMB—the small and medium-size business. When Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) put up just over $1 billion last month to …

Some 55% of all U.S. storefronts were accepting EMV chip cards as of September, according to the latest quarterly data from Visa Inc., released Monday. That comes to more than 2.5 million merchant locations, up 9% from June and 538% from September 2015, when 392,000 locations were accepting chip cards …

Chargeback.com Inc. released the Chargeback App to aid employees in managing a retailer’s chargeback disputes. The commerce-technology provider Big Commerce agreed to make Visa Checkout available to its more than 55,000 merchant clients. More than 28 million card accounts are enrolled in Visa Checkout, which streamlines the payment process with users’ …

Paris-based defense, aerospace, and transportation contractor Thales S.A. announced Monday that it has a €4.8 billion ($5.66 billion) deal to acquire Gemalto N.V., the world’s largest maker of chips for smart cards and mobile phones. The announcement that Thales plans to buy Gemalto for €51 per share ($60.1) comes just …

Seven retail trade groups filed a joint amicus brief in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court in which 11 states, led by Ohio, are appealing a U.S. Court of Appeals decision that upholds American Express Co.’s rule prohibiting merchants from steering customers to cards with lower acceptance costs. …

Santa Claus might be relaxing on Dec. 25, but criminals targeting online merchants with stolen credit and debit cards won’t be taking the day off. That’s evident from Stripe Inc.’s latest report on online fraud trends and behavior. Released this week, the report, which examines an undisclosed number of transactions made …

Gas stations caught a lucky break a year ago when Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. postponed their planned October 2017 EMV liability shifts for unattended fuel pumps for three years. Almost no convenience store or stand-alone gas station chain would have been ready by then, retail petroleum executives say, and …