Does EMV  Make Sense in the  United States? We pose the question above not because we are wondering about the answer, and still less because we doubt the benefits of chip-and-PIN security, but because a recent decision by Visa Inc. leaves us wondering what kind of future the world’s largest …

M-Commerce What NFC Should Look Like Steve Mott By most accounts, the wireless-carrier-based near-field communication (NFC) mobile payments initiative known as Isis (formally announced late last year but rumored for months before) is still falling short of the mark with respect to a winning formula for prying payments away from …

Cover Story Going for a Checkmate VeriFone’s buyout of Hypercom will further its dominance of America’s POS terminal industry, which is in the throes of rapid change. Is there life beyond the box? BY JIM DALY It’s not your father’s point-of-sale business any more. It’s not even your older brother’s. …

Security An End to the Great Data-Storage DebatePeter Lucas Weaning merchants from their ingrained practice of storing payment card data won’t be easy, but security experts conclude it must be done. Meanwhile, encryption technology, though growing in popularity, is not invulnerable. Having survived database breaches at high-profile retailers and merchant …

The turbulent regulatory and legal atmosphere enveloping the U.S. payment card industry is blowing the industry into camps of winners, losers, and those in between. The biggest losers: Visa and MasterCard, large debit card issuers, and consumers. Winners: merchant-funded rewards networks and big merchants. Also likely to gain in the …

Already big inside the convenience stores at thousands of gas stations, point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. is making headway at gas pumps. VeriFone on Thursday reported that petroleum-industry revenues grew 58% in its fourth fiscal 2010 quarter ended Oct. 31 over the year-earlier period. The strong petroleum results helped …

Contactless debit cards will make their formal debut in Canada next year with the launch of Interac Flash from Acxsys Corp.’s Interac Association, Canada’s national debit network. Interac’s first two Flash issuers are Scotiabank and RBC Royal Bank, which will roll out their first contactless cards next summer. The first …

Gemalto, a maker of payment cards, said on Wednesday it had developed the first credit card that can generate one-time passwords and also function in point-of-sale devices. The product, which the company calls the Ezio card, is immediately available in commercial quantities in the U.S., though so far no domestic …

Two years after talk started that the major card networks had designs on Canada’s debit card market, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Visa Canada announced Monday that CIBC was introducing the country’s first Visa-branded debit card. The card, dubbed the CIBC Advantage Card, is good in Canada only for …

Recognizing that sloppy payment-processing software installations can lead to data breaches, Visa Inc. on Tuesday issued what it calls the top 10 best practices for secure software management. Visa is aiming the guidance mostly at third-party software vendors, integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), and others that sell or license card-processing applications …