Investment

The U.S. payments industry has long agreed to disagree on the way to properly route EMV debit transactions, stalling the country's shift to chip-based cards. First Data hopes its decision to support and share Visa's technology will finally break the stalemate.

The payments industry still has much to do before anyone can claim mobile payments are secure. Many merchants, consumers, and processors are mistakenly comfortable with notion that encryption equals full security.

Visa Inc. and First Data's Star Network will share Visa's technology for routing debit transactions initiated through EMV chip-based cards.

After every major Samsung product unveiling this week, PayPal was quick to say: we have an app for that.

For years, the U.S. has been divided on whether EMV-chip cards should be deployed as chip-and-PIN cards or the simpler chip-and-signature. After the Target data breach drew attention to the threat of data theft, the PIN debate seems to have lost its edge but it hasn't gone away.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. will issue chip-and-PIN credit cards this year, a deviation from the company's earlier plans to issue only chip-and-signature cards.

Target's recent commitment to fast-track its conversion to EMV smartcard technology may not trigger an avalanche of U.S. retailers doing the same, but Target's move seems to have become a catalyst to resolve the payments industry's other issues around EMV adoption.

MasterCard and telcommunications technology provider Syniverse are testing a service designed to protect card transactions for travelers by allowing payments only when a user's mobile device is switched on in a specific location.

PayPal will support mobile fingerprint authentication on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S5 mobile phone, enabling Samsung customers to use their fingers to log in to shop at merchants who accept PayPal.

According to new fraud prevention company Forter, the best way for merchants to combat electronic payments fraud is hand off the responsibility entirely.