By John Stewart The rise of tokenization into a major payments business helps enable enterprises like Apple Pay and Android Pay but could also pose a threat to the financial institutions that have historically issued the majority of the cards consumers use most often. That threat lies in the fact …

The American Bankers Association seems to have persuaded the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do something the Bureau rarely ever does, at least in public: change its mind. The FBI’s original position was the consumers should enter a personal identification number whenever possible when using their new EMV chip cards. …

A public service announcement the FBI posted Thursday warning consumers that the new EMV chip cards “are vulnerable to exploitation by fraudsters” and urging them to enter a PIN instead of a signature during EMV credit card transactions was removed Friday, apparently at the behest of the leading banker trade …

Always conscious of keeping prices low, warehouse membership-club stores are tough customers for merchant acquirers and payments networks because they want to shave card-acceptance costs to the bone. So American Express Co., typically the most expensive card brand for merchants to accept, seemingly scored a coup when it announced that …

While a seemingly unending rash of data breaches has payments players scrambling to adopt a panoply of fraud-fighting technologies, little attention has been focused on the consequences for issuers and merchants when cardholders are wrongly turned down at the point of sale because of fraud suspicions. It’s a big problem—bigger …

The EMV era in the U.S. officially started Oct. 1, and for the most part this is shaping up to be an underwhelming launch for chip cards. It’s morning in America for payment cards, the accession of the EMV chip card as the successor to the half-century-old magnetic-stripe card. The …

Point-of-sale terminal makers such as VeriFone Systems Inc. and Ingenico Group are cashing in on the conversion of U.S. payment cards to the EMV chip card standard. On the other side of the card industry, the big plastic card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. also is enjoying a chip-induced windfall. …

You may or may not buy into Bitcoin, but you’re going to love the blockchain. Or so say those who are adopting Bitcoin’s ledger technology for everything from stock exchanges to ticket sales. When the speculative bubble that had driven the price of a single Bitcoin to four-figure heights burst …

  Even though mobile wallets appear to be the better bet, card consolidators Coin, Swyp, and Stratos are sticking to their plans. Thumbing through a wallet trying to find the right payment card or loyalty card to rack up points at the cash register is an age-old experience for many …

From leases lopsided in acquirers’ favor to a bevy of bogus fees, dodgy ISOs, sponsoring banks, processors, and leasing companies are exacting a moral as well as monetary cost on the industry. Here’s what’s going on—and how to clean it up once and for all. Picture this. You’re at a …