Data security

To help people keep their card information safe when they shop online, a handful of fintech startups are following Apple Pay's example of keeping that information hidden, providing merchants with tokens instead.

Payment technologies are in an unwelcome spotlight this month, as security researchers expose their weaknesses just as the products are winning a long-desired trust among mainstream consumers.

Dubai-based payment service provider Payfort has formed a partnership with Mastercard to improve fraud-screening and streamline the checkout process for e-commerce and mobile point of sale transactions for hundreds of merchants across the Middle East.

Three quarters of debit cards will have chips by the end of the year, but slow merchant adoption is limiting use, according to Pulse.

The proliferation of smartphones and the onset of mobile payments has brought biometrics to the forefront of security for financial transactions.

The U.S. EMV migration has been rough, but one of the sharpest pain points of all was felt by merchants not yet processing chip cards who were hit by a costly surge in chargebacks.

Once fraud has been detected and a customer’s usual payment mechanism is broken, what happens next to ensure that customer remains happy and loyal?

If new research from NCR about a flaw in chip cards proves to be reproducible by fraudsters, it may undermine the core benefit of EMV security.

The transactions look so ordinary that most banks' fraud filters aren't able to detect them. And the perpetrators aren't typical hackers — they are middle-aged churchgoers who believe they are taking back what's rightfully theirs.

Overall card fraud losses in Europe have declined slightly over the last five years, but that trend is starting to reverse course, based on new data from FICO and Euromonitor International that points to sharp regional upticks in card-not-present fraud.

In the wake of the Bitfinex heist, protecting consumers must again be at the forefront of the digital currency community.

The situation turns on whether the CFTC inadvertently pushed Bitfinex to adopt a weaker security system than it had been using. However, the way the bitcoin exchange used the new system was significantly flawed, security experts said.

Bots have slowly begun to creep onto the online payments scene, and they could offer a whole new, simpler way to part with our cash.

Barclays threw out security questions for telephone banking access this week and began using voice recognition technology, representing a step in an industry-wide move to eliminate passwords and challenge questions.

TouchID, facial recognition, behavior patterns, knowledge-based authentication, SMS codes – the means of authenticating continue to proliferate. The smart minds in security have yet to settle on one which is the most effective.

European Union regulators recently passed new rules for shielding data from cyber criminals. Every company that operates in or does business with EU citizens must comply, which is virtually every mid-to-large sized company in the world.

Retailers insist that the EMV migration in the U.S. is weak because there is no PIN requirement to verify chip-card transactions, a process that is standard practice in other nations.

The cybersecurity climate is already an all-hands-on-deck situation, so one more threat – even one prompted by one of America's loudest voices – may not matter.

Now is the time to correct the mistakes of interchange price controls that harm consumers and community financial institutions to the benefit of merchants.

Banks typically respond to pending regulations with a mixture of fear and dread, but new cybersecurity requirements being developed by the banking agencies may be met with relief.