Opinions

In today’s fast-paced, digital age, when smartphones are “outdated” six months after they’re released, nothing stays the same for long, and that includes payments fraud.

QR codes, a relatively old technology, are back in the spotlight thanks to a consortium of retailers led by Walmart and Target that plan to use the codes in their CurrentC payment technology.

As technological problems forced the New York Stock Exchange to grind to a halt Wednesday, financial services insiders and observers weighed in on the vulnerabilities of increasingly electronic financial systems.

While some predict that fintech startups will soon overthrow banks, a boom in partnerships between the two industries is far more likely. Startups will benefit from access to new markets and infrastructure, while banks will stay on the cutting edge of innovation.

With the looming liability shift in the United States, EMV is on every payment card issuer’s mind, though with the challenge comes opportunities, such as bolstering customer relationships.

There are plenty of opportunities for banks to collaborate with the tech startups that are driving rapid change in the financial industry. But first they need to find innovative ways to address systemic challenges like compliance as well as cultural differences.

Community banks that try to serve too broad an array of customers will wind up losing out to larger competitors. They would do better to focus on one or two customer segments and familiarize themselves with those groups' specific habits and needs.

As the United States begins its efforts to reduce credit card fraud by transitioning to EMV, another type of card—the online gift card—could see its fraud risk skyrocket.

Amongst all the hype and bluster around mobile payments, consumer adoption has lagged, and a fundamental question seems to be largely overlooked – why use mobile payments?

According to Verizon's 2015 Data Breach Investigation Report, approximately 20% percent of data breaches come from an internal source. This requires a change in an issuer's culture compliance to combat the problem.