Mobile devices, which have fundamentally changed so much of the electronic payments business, are now shaking up the cross-border remittance market. Twelve-year-old Xoom Corp., a relative newcomer to the business, says 37% of its transactions in the third quarter originated on mobile devices, compared to 22% a year ago. More …

Token Specs: Curb Your Enthusiasm The three biggest card networks would just like everybody to calm down. As dramatic as their joint tokenization announcement was last month, key officials with Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. have been at pains to tamp down the far-reaching industry speculation the …

By Jim Daly The deep divide within debit networks about bringing Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards to the United States was on full display Monday at a conference in which a Visa Inc. executive hinted that Visa might be open to a delay in a major EMV deadline. But an executive …

Karen Epper Hoffman A new proposal from European regulators promises dramatic cuts in interchange revenue. Will these rules encourage even more stringent measures in the States? The United States often looks to Europe for trends in fashion, environmental sustainability, and other concerns. Now the issue is payment card expenses and …

When it comes to payments, the United States might be considered the land of the gap, according to a Federal Reserve assessment issued earlier this month. The assessment is the first of a three-part research study aimed at spurring the modernization of U.S. electronic payments, which many public-sector researchers and …

Two powerful lawmakers on Friday wrote to the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board urging the central bank to scrap its debit card interchange caps and instead adopt limits in line with the more draconian regime proposed this week by the European Commission. In their letter to Fed Board chairman …

Elizabeth Whalen Merchants focus most of their attention on interchange when they think of card-acceptance costs, but now network fees and related charges are in the spotlight. Are such charges an expression of oligopolistic power? When MasterCard Inc.’s new digital-wallet fee takes effect this month, it will join a growing …

  If the Federal Trade Commission has its way, all telemarketers will be banned from using remotely created checks and three other payment methods in any transaction. The sweeping ban, which the FTC posted this week in a proposed rulemaking, would also prohibit telemarketers from collecting payment via remotely created …

E-commerce, better malware, and mobile devices are on the minds of fraudsters, according to Trustwave Holdings Inc.’s latest annual data-breach study. Chicago-based Trustwave, a leading data-forensics investigator and security vendor, based its report on 450 data breaches it investigated last year around the world. Hackers targeted payment card data in …

Everyone agrees EMV cards must comply with federal law. Trouble is, nobody can agree on how to make that happen. Meanwhile, a key EMV readiness deadline looms. By Peter Lucas This is no time for the payments industry to be arguing over how to route EMV debit transactions, what with …