Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …

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 …

Last month, I proposed a government-administered program that would offer citizens a cyber passport, a randomized, replaceable, short-lived code that, once issued, would become a requirement for all critical online transactions involving the covered individual. I asserted that this initiative would defeat today’s plague of massive breaches, which turns millions …

Ever since Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. announced their plans five years ago to introduce EMV chip cards in the United States, controversy has dogged the U.S. market’s effort to wean itself off of the magnetic stripe. One of the biggest conflicts has to do with how EMV cardholders should …

Following the audacious gatecrashing of the incumbent-payments party, MCX should have been king of the world. Instead, what occurred was an extended period of retrenchment. 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 …

The first version of the online-authentication protocol has acquired a nasty rep. With a new version on the way, will it go from four-letter word to four-star performer? It just might be the best-kept secret in payments. An authentication protocol called 3-D Secure, which issuers, acquirers, and merchants have used …

The EFT networks are broadening their product lineups, but are EMV and the global networks getting in their way? Eyeing high-growth payment markets such as e-commerce, the surviving electronic funds transfer networks are in a rush to expand their product menus beyond bread-and-butter PIN-debit transaction switching. At the same time, …

Why skepticism is setting in not just about Bitcoin but also about its underlying technology, the blockchain. Like Beanie Babies and baseball cards, Bitcoin has become a collector’s item, curtailing its usefulness as the faster, cheaper consumer payment method it was developed to be. Out of these adoption delays has …

• ATM network operator Cardtronics plc, formerly Cardtronics Inc., completed its plan to re-domicile in the United Kingdom following approval of the plan by shareholders June 28. Cardtronics’ North American headquarters will remain in Houston, while its European headquarters will be in London. The company’s stock will continue to trade …

Why skepticism is setting in not just about Bitcoin but also about its underlying technology, the blockchain. Like Beanie Babies and baseball cards, Bitcoin has become a collector’s item, curtailing its usefulness as the faster, cheaper consumer payment method it was developed to be. Out of these adoption delays has …