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 …

Lately, the payments industry has been much taken with the so-called Millennial generation and how to appeal to it. Research released Wednesday indicates a key to this question is to take advantage of the one smart-phone activity the 18-to-34 age group has made famous: the selfie. The research, conducted by …

Visa Inc. is providing emerging self-checkout provider Digital Retail Apps another venue to showcase its smart phone-based service by enabling it at the Visa Innovation Center, its technology lab in San Francisco. Toronto-based Digital Retail Apps says Visa will integrate the SelfPay technology into the Visa Everywhere Shop app, enabling …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group has teamed up with Bitcoin merchant acquirer BitPay Inc. to retrofit a traditional POS terminal for Bitcoin acceptance in stores. And the U.S. Marshals Service is planning to auction off the last of the Bitcoin that the FBI seized in 2013 when it busted Ross …

With the Oct. 1 liability-shift milestone passed, payments companies are reviewing progress so far and introducing new products to take advantage of the migration to EMV chip card payments. First up is MasterCard Inc., which says that “tens of millions” of chip-enabled transactions are being made in the United States. …

By Jim Daly They’re few and far between, but another U.S. issuer, regional banking company First Niagara Financial Group Inc., has committed itself to issuing EMV credit cards of the chip-and-PIN variety. Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara announced just before the U.S. EMV liability shift took effect that it will convert …

By John Stewart Payments-processing titan First Data Corp. on Thursday launched its long-awaited effort to go public with an initial offering of stock that would value the company at as much as $17.6 billion and raise as much as $3.2 billion. The IPO could well be the largest seen on …

In the four years since Visa Inc. announced the EMV liability shift would be Oct. 1, 2015, merchants, issuers, processors, and other parties have expended huge efforts to prepare for this day. But the real work—converting millions more merchants, issuing millions more chip cards, and educating merchants and consumers—is in …