The Fed’s new real-time payments platform will pose challenges for risk management. Here’s how to cope with that. The U.S. Federal Reserve made its FedNow instant-payments service live in July. It enables a faster flow of cash for companies and individuals, improving the overall flow of money through the U.S. …

There are many ways to protect against a shark attack: certain wet suits, defensive tools, evasive behavior, and so on. Sometimes they help, other times they don’t. What never fails is to walk on the beach. Safety guaranteed. Same for the cyber ocean. If you walk on its beach, known …

Pay attention to your MCCs, or pay a hefty price later on. Merchant category codes (MCCs) play a central role in payments risk management, but too many service providers and acquirers take them at face value. Now, in the wake of renewed focus on MCCs by the payment networks, miscategorized …

Consumer affinity for in-person transactions that reduce points of contact are taking hold as contactless payments made with debit cards swelled to 16% of the U.S. card-present share last year from 8% in 2021. It’s a similar story with debit cards used with mobile wallets. Their use increased from 5% …

The fraud that threatens real-time payments is quicker—and demands quicker action. Today’s world of instant gratification is about to take another big leap forward in July when a second real-time payments network debuts with the launch of FedNow, the Federal Reserve’s instant-payment network. Announced as a concept in 2019, two …

British automaker Lotus Cars Ltd. has selected Stripe Inc. as the processor for its direct-to-consumer sales in Europe. The deal will enable consumers to configure, order, and pay for cars online. Consumers can use such payment methods as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and bank transfers. Lotus will be able to …

It’s May, and that means it’s time for our annual exercise to seek out and describe the payments 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 …

The big may get bigger, but there’s plenty of room for smaller ISOs and payments companies to thrive and capitalize. With megaprocessors, fintechs, payfacs, and integrated payments providers abundant in the payments world, smaller independent sales organizations and software sellers may feel some pressure. But the competition does not automatically …

You may have only recently started to hear about payments orchestration. You’re going to hear a lot more about it as payment methods and routing choices multiply. Everybody in the business has heard for years how complicated payments are. In the old days, merchants were local, and all they accepted …

The vulnerability of passwords to hackers is giving rise to a host of passwordless authentication solutions. Whether it’s a financial account, an account with an e-commerce retailer, or medical records, user names and passwords have been the most common authentication method for digitally accessing an account. Trouble is, passwords are …