The idea of the payments consortium has a checkered history. Nick Holland explains why. We have recently witnessed the likely demise of yet another attempt at cracking the mobile-payments nut. For many, the implosion of Merchant Customer Exchange LLC’s CurrentC wallet venture was no great surprise. To be sure, MCX …

The idea of the payments consortium has a checkered history. Nick Holland explains why. We have recently witnessed the likely demise of yet another attempt at cracking the mobile-payments nut. For many, the implosion of Merchant Customer Exchange LLC’s CurrentC wallet venture was no great surprise. To be sure, MCX …

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Rich Oliver, payments consultant, speaker, and retired executive vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. We discussed some of the hurdles he sees in the U.S. payments system as it accelerates from decades of glacial evolution to the world …

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Rich Oliver, payments consultant, speaker, and retired executive vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. We discussed some of the hurdles he sees in the U.S. payments system as it accelerates from decades of glacial evolution to the world …

The sweeping 4-year-old settlement between card networks and banks on the one hand and merchants on the other, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Thursday, covered a lot of ground. But the case the agreement grew out of had as its central focus credit card …

Loyalty points have become as valuable as traditional currency. That’s attracting fraudsters—and forcing program managers to redouble their efforts to protect members. The risk of fraud threatens each and every aspect of our digital lives, including loyalty programs. Nearly 72% of loyalty-program operators admit to experiencing fraud issues, with cybercriminals …

Retailers are contending with a markedly higher level of fraud this year than they did in 2015, with the fraud rate increasing from 1.32% of revenue to 1.47%, finds the 2016 LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud study. Last year marked the first time the rate was greater than 1%. When …

Biometric security has gained enormous momentum since my first warnings on this subject several years ago in this column. By now, millions of us have surrendered our biological patterns, exposing our fingerprints, facial features, palm layouts, irises, ocular vein structures, even our heartbeat patterns. And once this information is out …

2015 is the year of EMV, as much for the various ways chip cards are causing anxiety for the payments business as for their putative benefits. But a host of other issues is keeping payments executives awake these days, as well. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the …

From leases lopsided in acquirers’ favor to a bevy of bogus fees, dodgy ISOs, sponsoring banks, processors, and leasing companies are exacting a moral as well as monetary cost on the industry. Here’s what’s going on—and how to clean it up once and for all. Picture this. You’re at a …