It’s the key to reducing risk and simplifying PCI compliance, but it’s often overlooked. Following months of intensified global cyberattacks, it’s imperative that today’s threats be met with a multilayered approach to security. Rendering cardholder data useless to criminals is the end game. This means that even if a criminal …

Funding for small businesses has been an increasingly important source of revenue for independent sales organizations and other merchant acquirers, but they’re not the only parties that have noticed the market’s lucrative potential. Now, banking-technology vendors and even large merchants are getting into the game. Jack Henry & Associates Inc., …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is building a point-of-sale system reseller network in hopes it will increase the number of multiple products sold to a single merchant. Announced Friday, the program is part of Heartland Commerce, and signals a shift in Heartland’s selling strategy. The company will no longer use a …

With technologies like Apple Pay and host card emulation reviving prospects for mobile payments using near-field communication, merchants are starting to install more NFC devices at the point of sale. And, more important, they’re starting to turn on the NFC capability. That’s according to a report issued Tuesday by Berg …

By Jim Daly In the opinion of Visa Inc.’s lawyers, the Pulse PIN-debit network’s antitrust suit against the leading payment card network shouldn’t even have a pulse because Pulse hasn’t shown it has been harmed. Meanwhile, Google Inc. and a number of merchants that individually sued Visa and MasterCard Inc. …

Hoping for contactless chip cards? Not likely any time soon. The contact version of EMV is emerging as the clear issuer choice as October’s liability shift approaches. Here’s why. It’s show time for chip cards. With the payment card networks’ so-called liability shift now just eight months away, U.S. general-purpose …

The National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys organization is lending its name recognition to a new merchant-services company, Blue Star Payment Solutions. Frisco, Texas-based Blue Star intends to build its brand based on its affiliation with the Dallas Cowboys as one of the companies owned by the Jones family, says Jerry …

News of a possible card-data breach at chicken-sandwich chain Chick-fil-A caps a year that saw a number of franchised businesses compromised and throws into relief what some experts say is the unique security vulnerability of the franchise business model. Franchised chains, in which so-called owner-operators run stores under a license …

The advent of younger users, combined with the rise of smart phones and a much-improved user experience, is helping to drive a surge in mobile person-to-person payments. But providers still haven’t figured out how to make money on the service, which lets consumers use smart phones to pay each other …

Automated clearing house transactions have settled next day for years, but pressure has been building to speed things up in the 40-year-old system that links nearly every financial institution in the country. So NACHA, the organization that manages the ACH, last month opened for comment a sweeping proposal to introduce …