Payment processing

Because the legal cannabis industry is typically considered too high-risk for most banks and payment processors to work with, most technology solutions are designed to duplicate the familiar process of paying by card.

Thanks to the downstream nature of technology, what was once the domain for large organizations is now accessible to organizations of all sizes, writes Ralph Perdomo, a research analyst at Nvoicepay.

Even as the payments landscape has become increasingly complicated and convoluted over the past several years, many industry players have not kept pace with their payments testing methods or tools, writes Steve Gilde, director of global product marketing for Paragon Application Systems.

To date, payments companies have feared common biometric methods such as fingerprint or iris scanning are unreliable and susceptible to hacking. However, there’s growing evidence that finger vein ID could prove more palatable.

Installing a modern payment gateway, for example, makes the checkout process more convenient, speeding up order processing while offering alternative payment methods, saved customer information and location-specific options, writes Amit Bhaiya, co-founder and CEO of DotcomWeavers.

One expert says the U.S. lags behind other countries, but changes are coming soon – and fast.

Legacy card issuers are facing a huge problem that threatens their relevance. Most of them are trying to launch a spaceship with a steam engine, and many of the solutions to that quandary are expensive, risky — and temporary.

Credit unions are working to turn a distributed ledger-based identity project into a platform for payments and financial services.

In blockchain, a dispersed network of stakeholders takes over the previous owners of such services. These providers and users not only own but maintain the services that are powered by the blockchain. They also get to share the profits that are produced by the services, contends Donika Kraeva, communications manager at Dentacoin.

Processing.com has 25 acquiring banks lined up as its transaction network, creating a safety net for dealing with high-risk merchants.