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 …

Kevin Woodward Tech players that have entered payments aren’t looking to make their living from transaction fees. That may put traditional acquirers on edge, but two can play this game. For as long as anyone can remember, electronic transactions have carried fees for processing. These fees have excited plenty of …

Jim Daly Data-breach insurance has become a mainstream product in the merchant-acquiring business, but some executives say PCI compliance and diligent security practices negate the need to buy coverage. What’s next? The unnerving reality that credit and debit card-accepting merchants and their processors can have their computer systems hacked spawned …

Peter Lucas Having invested in new equipment, payment card manufacturers are ready to churn out EMV cards by the millions in the U.S. But issuers that wait too long could be caught short. Common in nearly all of the developed world, Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards have been a long time …

Leading payment card processor First Data Corp. on Tuesday announced it had bought Perka Inc., a startup that provides smart-phone-based loyalty programs for merchants. The Perka buy comes just a few weeks after First Data unveiled a tablet-based point-of-sale system from Clover Network Inc., another startup that it quietly bought …

Clover Network Inc., which on Wednesday burst into a crowded market for tablet-based point-of-sale systems, is betting that merchants would like to choose their apps for customer service and checkout in the same way they can load apps on their smart phones. With the new Clover Station, merchants can download …

  CardFree, a mobile-wallet startup founded by payments-industry veterans with experience in mobile-payments apps, says its first merchant partner is Sonic Drive-In, a quick-serve restaurant chain with more than 3,500 locations. CardFree features a geo-location app to identify the consumer’s proximity to the merchant for marketing purposes. The company, which …

Steve Mott Two years after Google’s splashy mobile-wallet debut, there are more wallets than ever, even though Google and others have stumbled. What’s wrong with current wallet strategies, and what kind of future do digital wallets have? If things go according to unofficial reports, the readers of this article will …

Critics say state-by-state money-transfer licenses deter payments startups and entrench incumbents. Defenders say they protect the public. What’s really going on? By Jim Daly Christopher Ferro, who heads up legal and compliance operations at digital wire-transfer company Xoom Corp., was pleased. It was Sept. 5, and he had just opened …

Mark Horwedel Heavy costs, unrealistic deadlines, and a looming threat to hard-won Durbin rights are just some of the reasons. The bottom line is the chip card standard badly needs an overhaul. This question posed by the headline on this article seems to come up with increasing frequency these days, …