Jolted by some shocking failures over the past several months, the mobile-acceptance market is fast shedding its early euphoria. What are the prospects for mPOS now? As boardroom dramas go, it seldom gets more compelling than this. In February, news suddenly emerged that Powa Technologies Ltd., a high-flying London-based startup …

  Semi-integrated POS systems are quickly becoming a preferred option for acquirers and merchants. Among the many outcomes stemming from the U.S. payment card industry’s burgeoning migration to the EMV chip card standard is the rise of semi-integrated point-of-sale systems, which enable merchants to use sophisticated POS software without worrying …

Remember when NFC was a dead letter in payments? Well, it’s undergoing quite a resurrection, thanks to EMV and mobile wallets like Apple Pay. When Apple Pay burst upon the payments scene 18 months ago, the way it allowed iPhones to connect instantly with point-of-sale terminals seemed like something fresh …

A grassroots campaign is under way to educate payment-application resellers and integrators about data-security best practices. Will costs prove to be a barrier? Data breaches at small merchants may not grab the headlines that hacks at huge chains such as Target Corp. do, but make no mistake, small merchants are …

Mobile payments funded through the automated clearing house network are not unusual, but a growing corps of processors and tech companies are working to increase the ACH’s share. As mobile payments begin what appears to be a long climb to general consumer acceptance, the major actors in electronic payments face …

Some important payments developments are asserting themselves this year. Don’t risk being left behind. The pace of change in the payments industry is normally fast. But the perfect storm of the U.S. EMV migration plus the mobile-wallet revolution has accelerated that pace to blistering. It’s an exciting time, but also …

All of us in the security business face a humiliating reality: Everything we do is only effective against hackers who are dumber than we are. A smarter hacker, with more imagination, could devise a penetration strategy that we are not smart enough to conceive, and hence can offer no countermeasures …

We probably should have seen this coming. The ongoing transition of the U.S. payments system to the EMV chip card standard has provoked its first lawsuit. And chances are this won’t be the last. Two Florida merchants, a small grocery chain and a liquor store, filed suit last month in …

EMV-related chargebacks are coming home to roost, and there’s nothing like an unexpected chargeback to turn a recalcitrant merchant into an EMV believer. According to survey results from Javelin Strategy and Research, only 8% of small and so-called micro businesses queried in February that didn’t accept EMV chip cards cited …

Speaking of chargebacks, merchant acquirers are indeed reporting more of them now that the U.S. conversion to the EMV chip card standard is under way, but chargeback exposure varies widely by acquirer. And, so far at least, relatively few of the chargebacks are translating into actual financial losses. That’s the …