Technology

The day when the U.S. joins many other large markets globally in converting to EMV chip-and-PIN cards from magnetic stripe versions will not occur any time soon. But it will come eventually, observers predict.

Independent sales organizations may realize such benefits as lower costs and faster sales cycles from using digital signatures and contracts, but they likely will find difficulty adopting a technology not widely used in the payments industry. Potential legal difficulties also exist, and not all processors and sponsor banks may approve of digital contracts, note observers.

Banks are ready to spend more on technology, but concerns over compliance expenses could keep some of them from moving forward soon with major upgrades.

As competition for clients intensifies and margins grow increasingly thin, many independent sales organizations are seeking ways to reduce costs, increase efficiency and stand out from competitors. One method gaining consideration is the use of digital signatures and contracts.

Fiserv reported a 17% rise in first quarter earnings Thursday, even as revenues slid by about 1%.

Smartphone-based transactions represent an opportunity to grow U.S. card acceptance, which largely has become commoditized because most brick-and-mortar merchants accept payment cards. However, the challenge for independent sales organizations and other resellers of smartphone-based point-of-sale products may be locating mobile-merchant clients, observers say.

Sterling Payment Technologies Inc. in November launched a merchant-security compliance program with the goal of ensuring Sterling’s merchants meet the criteria established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.

Four witnesses testifying April 28 before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on credit card interchange regulation agreed on one thing: A handful of the largest banks benefit most from interchange. And the potential effect of interchange-rate regulation on smaller community banks and credit unions, which struggle to compete against the giants, is murky.

RegaloCard LLC, a fledging mobile-payments company, announced April 28 it has inked agreements with several prepaid phone card distributors to place its card-based funds-transfer service in more than 100,000 retailers across the United States. The Miami-based company’s service is designed to enable consumers to receive funds from the U.S. to use to pay for products and services as participating store locations in Central America.

Restaurateurs may have another reason to use pay-at-the-table terminals from Ingenico S.A., which has added software to the devices to help lower the interchange rates for credit and debit card transactions.