Payment processing

Most issuing banks are not allowing recent retailer data breaches to change their schedules for adopting EMV-chip cards, even though Target and other companies have said they would fast-track their own plans.

Square has reportedly delayed an initial public offering, which gives the company a chance to build more services that position it for sustainable growth in the future, according to payments consultant Richard Crone.

Isis expects a lot of banks will leverage host card emulation (HCE) to build their own mobile wallets, though the telecom-led mobile payments scheme also hopes the technology will add breadth to its own service.

Cellum, a mobile commerce provider, has integrated MasterCard's MasterPass digital wallet with its own mobile wallet offering, OTPay, making it the first third-party in Europe to integrate MasterPass.

As banks continue to study the use of host card emulation (HCE) for Near Field Communication-based mobile payments, Ukraine's PrivatBank says it is one of the first to publicly launch an HCE service.

TSYS has renewed an agreement Missouri-based Commerce Bank to handle its credit and signature debit cards, adding PIN debit services as well.

The U.S. payments industry has long agreed to disagree on the way to properly route EMV debit transactions, stalling the country's shift to chip-based cards. First Data hopes its decision to support and share Visa's technology will finally break the stalemate.

The payments industry still has much to do before anyone can claim mobile payments are secure. Many merchants, consumers, and processors are mistakenly comfortable with notion that encryption equals full security.

Revel Systems and Index are partnering to bring the kind of personalized consumer messaging that's common in e-commerce to the countertops of retail stores.

Visa Inc. and First Data's Star Network will share Visa's technology for routing debit transactions initiated through EMV chip-based cards.

For years, the U.S. has been divided on whether EMV-chip cards should be deployed as chip-and-PIN cards or the simpler chip-and-signature. After the Target data breach drew attention to the threat of data theft, the PIN debate seems to have lost its edge but it hasn't gone away.

Swedish bank Handelsbanken plans to resell a VeriFone-built chip-and-PIN mobile card reader to enable the country's micro merchants to accept card payments through smartphones and tablets.

Target's recent commitment to fast-track its conversion to EMV smartcard technology may not trigger an avalanche of U.S. retailers doing the same, but Target's move seems to have become a catalyst to resolve the payments industry's other issues around EMV adoption.

Ingenico's Roam is launching a mobile card reader with chip and PIN acceptance, and it expects U.S. merchants will want to use it to accept PIN debit transactions even before EMV-chip cards become widespread.

HP plans to sell a tablet-based point of sale system that integrates payments with a number of other business operations.

Smartphone commerce company LoopPay has released LoopWallet, as well as a fob that enables users to store payment credentials.

Retail giant Target Corp.'s headache-inducing data breach brings to mind the 1982 Tylenol poisoning crisis—an event that drug maker Johnson & Johnson handled with such aplomb that it restored public confidence in its medicine, altered the way retailers handle product safety and established itself as the gold standard for crisis management.

E-commerce technology provider Payza will offer an outsourced service that allows U.S. merchants to accept card payments directly into their business bank accounts.

Mobile point of sale devices typically clip onto phones to allow the handsets to read card payments, but this approach is not the only option.

Square's plans to install payments technology in Whole Foods stores will not hurt the processor Vantiv, CEO Charles Drucker contends.