PayThink

Financial institutions all over the U.S. are making decisions about how they will implement and manage their EMV infrastructure moving forward; decisions that will impact their operations for years to come.

Rather than wait until after a data breach to increase information-security investments, banks should put into place practices that help prevent cyberattacks in the first place.

As the financial industry scrambles to monetize big data, it would be smart to remember that consumers' growing concerns about privacy issues might stanch the flow of personal information in coming years.

This year has been so bad for merchant data breaches that President Obama felt the need to advance the timeframes to be EMV-compliant at government points of sale.

Board members at smaller banks tend to dismiss the importance of the annual self-assessment process. But as board governance attracts growing regulatory scrutiny, directors should embrace the chance to identify areas for improvement.

Housing policy needs to be refocused on strengthening household balance sheets, especially by making borrowersmore resilient to home price declines. A new 15-year fixed-rate mortgage that allows borrowers to use the down payment to buy down the interest rate on the loan is designed to do just that.

Designed as an alternative to current payment systems, digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, XRP and Dogecoin, are a way for people to track, store and send payments over the internet. They are intended to make payment processing cheaper and faster.

Walmart and Best Buy were up-front about their disinterest in Apple Pay; CVS and Rite Aid followed after the fact. Reportedly, these Merchant Customer Exchange participants are placing their bets on the group's upcoming CurrentC wallet, but there's another reason they may want to distance themselves from Apple Pay.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's report on private student loans should prompt lenders, regulators and universities to take action to help troubled borrowers and prevent future defaults.

Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover have placed a timeline for U.S. EMV adoption, in the form of liability shifts, which has elevated chip card migration from conceptual to imminent.