Merchant

Gift cards will be the most-requested item this holiday season again, and for the first time, one in three U.S. consumers buying gift cards will opt for digital versions, opening new possibilities for merchants that are anxious to counter Amazon's influence and improve user experience for stored value.

Smaller enterprises don't have the resources of larger firms, but open source technology may be helpful, says Pimcore's Shashin Shah.

Curve has appointed Paul Harrald to lead a business line that will allow the all-in-one card company to offer support for credit card debt reduction and installment payments.

The United States could be the point-of-sale lender's largest market within two years, its CEO says. The firm's investors include BlackRock, Sequoia Capital and the rapper Snoop Dogg.

Whether data leaks come from internal mistakes and exposures or from direct hacking, the outcome is the same. Data is exposed and cybercriminals are using it for fraud today, next year or several years from now, says NuData's Rosemary O'Neill.

In many ways, the payments industry resembles the health care business — pulled into the future by rapid digitization and conflict over the role of government.

In updating its point-to-point encryption standard, the PCI Security Standards Council says the resulting simplified validation process for component and software providers will result in more products available for cardholder data protection.

WeWork has gotten its share of bad news this year, but parts of its concept are filtering into small business retail, providing one clue of what the next wave of shopping and payments will look like.

The new decade will see Generation Z become adults, and they will expect more services and activities to be facilitated by their device of choice, says Zoomd's Omri Argaman.

The bank, whose 7(a) originations have plummeted in recent years, is developing a portal that will let applicants upload documents, complete forms and track application progress.