Payment cards

Jeanne Tisinger spent three decades working at the CIA, where her most recent position was deputy director overseeing the agency’s physical and cybersecurity and information technology spanning more than 100 countries.

Now two years on from the U.S. EMV liability shift, chip cards are commonplace in American wallets. But the benefits of EMV cards — a longer five-year lifespan and a reduced need to reissue in the event of fraud — have muted the demand for new cards.

The industry has the opportunity to expedite gains in interoperability and realize significant cost savings and productivity gains for both the clinical and administrative sides of the industry, writes Chris Seib, chief technology officer and cofounder of InstaMed.

It is often difficult to imagine how something will disrupt an industry because it may seem that the industry is already functioning with no problems. But there are inefficiencies that may not be apparent, writes Mariam Nishanian, a representative for Dentacoin.

The U.S. and Canada are far behind Europe and Asia in contactless adoption in general. A handful of mass transit agencies are stirring hopes about NFC fare payments, but even these cities are taking a cautious approach to open-loop payments.

The store-branded credit card issuer reported that more borrowers fell behind on their payments in the third quarter. Still, net earnings were stronger than expected.

UL Transaction Security has teamed up with Zurich-based payment software engineering firm Abrantix to create a robot to automate the typically tedious, manual process of payment terminal testing.

In a surprise move, the Supreme Court will decide whether Amex may bar merchants from steering customers to less expensive card networks. The card issuer will have to prove the consumer gain from its practices outweighs the merchant pain.

The desperation in Puerto Rico for life's essentials — food, gas, water and electricity — in the wake of Hurricane Maria illustrates the need for payments providers to move as quickly as possible to get the U.S. territory in a position to reinstate some semblance of modern commerce.

Card fraud is declining, making smaller merchants and other chip card laggards even larger targets, writes Allen Friedman, director of payment solutions at Ingenico Group, North America.