The nation’s largest transit operators are moving toward so-called open-fare payment systems that will enable riders to pay fares with just a tap of a contactless bank card at a subway turnstile or a terminal on a bus. Replacement of old fare systems, however, is not going at nearly the …

With both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. now on the record with plans to encourage the adoption of EMV chip card and mobile payments in the U.S, it seems all but certain that the magnetic-stripe payment card’s days are numbered. In fact, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. already is seeing some EMV …

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Virtual Currencies: Bust-Out Ahead? Witness the recent travails of the euro if you want proof of how hard it is for any new currency, even a physical currency backed by multiple governments, to attain and retain widespread usage and acceptance. The obstacles blocking the new breed of electronic currencies from …

Government authorities are demanding better merchant underwriting and transaction monitoring by payment processors in order to prevent consumer fraud. A laudable goal, but at what cost? by Jim Daly Almost two years ago, a Federal Trade Commission official made it known to a meeting of merchant-acquiring executives that their industry …

n A payments executive for Sinclair Oil outlines her frustrations with data security—and argues for a major upgrade to EMV. by Trinette Huber We’ve all been hearing a lot about EMV, or chip card technology, lately as some banks and merchants actually issue chip cards and install the terminals that …

With m-commerce shifting into high gear, consumers are expecting a faster, user-friendlier checkout experience. Delivering that kind of experience won’t come from advances in handset hardware, but software. by Peter Lucas In the world of mobile commerce less is more, especially when it comes to checkout. Savvy merchants learned years …

Not content with restrictions on debit card interchange, merchants are now targeting bigger game. A set of major antitrust cases could be just the opening salvo—and a trial is set to start in September. By Linda Punch While the card networks and banks are still wrestling with the repercussions from …

Ever since Visa Inc. released a major policy statement in August regarding chip cards in the United States, observers have waited for the other shoe to fall from competing card networks, especially Visa’s biggest rival, MasterCard Inc. That void began to fill in late on Monday with MasterCard’s release of …

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