By Michelle Jordan, SVP and Head of Payment Optimization The weighted average cost of payment acceptance is expected to have doubled from around 0.8% in 2009 to over 1.6% by 2025.[i] Fueled by the abundance of rewards cards, the shift to online payments, and the rise of commercial purchasing cards, …

Gift cards are expected to be popular presents this holiday season as 60% of consumers say they will buy the cards to fill a void in product availability created by disruptions to product supply chains, says Fiserv Inc.’s Q3 2022 Gift Card Gauge. Discount stores and big-box retailers will be …

Price inflation is rising at its fastest rate since the early 1980s, and that’s prompting dueling releases from both foes and advocates of card interchange, the fee merchants pay when consumers use credit and debit cards. Merchant groups have long inveighed against interchange—also referred to as “swipe fees”—as a cost …

Criminals are cashing in on cybercrime in a big way. A new report from Arkose Labs reveals that experienced or “master” fraudsters can pull down up to $7.2 million annually and that rookie fraudsters can earn as much as $20,000 per month with an investment of as little as $5 …

Some processors are ready to put the pandemic behind them, but FIS Inc. may have already done it. The big payments processor and banking-services provider early Tuesday reported its merchant revenue increased 15% year-over-year in the first quarter, a number that exceeded the company’s expectations, chief executive Gary Norcross told …

By Tracy Kobeda Brown – VP of Programs and Technology and Leo Parrill – Content Manager, MRC   The annual Global Payments and Fraud Report, produced in collaboration with Cybersource, Verifi, and the Merchant Risk Council, serves as a valuable benchmark in the payments and fraud prevention space, providing insight …

Having held off for the past two years, the country’s two biggest card networks are preparing revisions to their interchange schedules that at least one research firm says will cost U.S. merchants an estimated $475 million in additional transaction fees. Though Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have historically revised their …

With the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating consumers’ use of contactless cards and mobile wallets, merchants can expect hackers to target contactless transaction data at the point-of-sale, says Ruston Miles, founder and advisor at Atlanta-based Bluefin Payment Systems LLC. The main point of vulnerability in a contactless environment at the physical point-of-sale …

While merchants, banks, and payments providers may be tempted to blame sharply rising fraud rates on the pandemic, fraud losses were rising before Covid-19 set in and will continue to rise for as far as the eye can see, according to experts behind a major fraud report released this week. …

All card schemes are now on board with the new deadline for the U.S. EMV liability shift in April 2021. So, the time to upgrade—if you haven’t—is now.  Adding EMV chip readers both inside a store and at automated fuel dispensers (AFDs) isn’t intended to be a hardship for gas …