Kate Fitzgerald

Citi, First Data and Mercator execs debated mobile wallet strategies at a panel discussion at NACHA.

BALTIMORE — Two large merchants at Nacha's Payments 2012 conference expressed decidedly negative views on the card networks' approach to the EMV secure chip-card standard in the U.S.

Large data breaches at companies like Global Payments (GPN) are just the tip of the iceberg of the financial industry's data security woes, says Steve Elefant, who was chief technology officer at Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) during its massive 2008 data breach.

Each new breach erodes consumer trust a bit more.

Kevin Knight, the master of Nordstrom's cobranded Visa credit and debit card rewards program, joins Visa as the company's head of credit and debit products, Visa announced March 28.

In its quest to rise above the fray in alternative payments, Obopay has identified another financial-services niche ripe for modernization: business-to-consumer payments.

Microsoft is touting a recent victory against servers hosting the Zeus malware that has plagued banks, but even it admits that the malware hasn't been completely defeated.

Zoom Tan doesn't accept cash or checks — and its customers are often too scantily clad to be carrying them anyway. It now uses a biometric fingerprint reader as an alternative to credit and debit cards.

Payments companies are beating card fraud on some fronts, but those victories could have a hidden cost. Overly aggressive fraud-screening measures driving card-not-present fraud down also could be preventing legitimate e-commerce

"The time when everybody and their dog could start a prepaid card company is coming to an end" and prepaid companies need to step up their use of technology to keep their customers, says Plastyc CEO Patrice Peyret.

While more consumers are using smartphones to pay bills and conduct other financial transactions, a good portion worrying about security are staying away, according to a Federal Reserve Board study.

The window of opportunity to get away with questionable fees on reloadable prepaid cards may be narrowing.

In merchants' eagerness to use mobile devices to attract new business, many are inadvertently creating new openings for credit and debit card fraud. And fraudsters have noticed.

The U.S. is already lagging other countries in its conversion to a secure chip-card format. And if Canada is any example, the U.S. may continue to lag despite the aggressive deadlines set by the card networks.

As some large retailers work on their own mobile payment initiative, they'll still be interested in other programs such as Google Wallet and Isis.

The expanding array of U.S. cards that use the secure EMV standard now includes the first cobranded hotel card equipped with a chip to make overseas travel easier.

Barclays' U.S. unit became the latest credit card lender to benefit from Bank of America Corp.'s crash diet, as it bought a $1.3 billion Sallie Mae credit card portfolio.

Discover's Pulse network is the latest offer person-to-person payment capabilities from Obopay. But widespread consumer demand seems to be lacking, as does a clear business case for financial institutions.

Yet another emerging payment scheme sees an opportunity to claw at the soft underbelly of legacy point-of-sale payment systems, this time putting carriers — not banks — in control of the payment accounts.

American Express is dangling another lure to hook its small-business cardholders on social media as a promotional channel: $100 worth of Twitter advertising.