Data security

Merchants should check operating systems, since the PC-based operating systems which run most legacy point of sale software have security flaws and are targets for malware.

The payments messaging network Swift has told its client banks that the threat of cyberattacks "is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated — and it is here to stay."

The payments messaging network Swift has told its client banks that the threat of cyberattacks "is very persistent, adaptive and sophisticated — and it is here to stay."

Banks and data aggregators agree that screen scraping is a practice probably best left behind. In the coming year, the two might get better at sharing data via APIs.

Too many data breach reports show that companies suffering compromises were unaware that cardholder data was present in their systems. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council wants to fix this.

Crooks are getting more clever when hacking e-commerce sites to hide illegal activity, requiring banks and processors to developer a broader picture of merchants and payment activity.

Mobile payment initiatives have largely failed because they focus on changing transactions instead of changing the way consumers and merchants engage with each other, according to Carta Worldwide, which touts new tokens as a way to reverse that.

When BankMobile, the brainchild of Jay Sidhu and his daughter Luvleen, relaunches on a new platform in January, security — especially for the onboarding process — will be completely redesigned.

In short order, Mastercard, Visa and now Amex have made rapid strikes designed to not only bolster identity protection for online commerce, but to make that protection nearly invisible to the consumer.

The opening of the 2016 holiday season, which marks the first full year since the country's major EMV fraud liability shift, is proving what data security experts feared all along.