Payment standards

This month, Vancouver became the first Canadian city to commercially roll out open transit payments. But the city of Laval actually got a head start on Vancouver with a pilot project that is getting a positive reaction from riders.

With the use of global standards, merchants can also strengthen and consolidate their relationships with vendors and minimize expenditure on hardware and software solutions and maintenance, writes Normand Provost, liaison chair of Nexo.

Card issuers have long feared that third-party mobile wallets would erode their brand power by rendering them an invisible part of the payment process — and issuers like Barclays and TD Bank are finding ways to fight back.

Despite Canada's high penetration of contactless POS terminals and consumer affinity for the technology, the country has lagged behind nations such as the U.K. and Singapore in contactless payments. That is set to change as Canada's transit schemes launch contactless open-payment systems.

Transport players are faced with several opportunities to meet both the rising expectations of end users and tap in to new revenue streams. The time to innovate is undoubtedly now, writes Myung-Hwa Calais, transport market director at FIME.

American Express has issued a series of deadlines for merchant acquirers in markets outside of the U.S. in an attempt to jolt the global migration.

Contactless payments have become increasingly popular in the U.K. over the past couple of years due to the advantages they offer in terms of speed and ease of payment — but despite this, much of the U.K. public does not trust the format.

PCI compliance can't solve all security problems. EMV, encryption are all necessary to protect merchants from data breaches, writes Jeff Zimmerman, COO of Clearent.

Resourceful crooks will relentlessly probe systems, processes and people until they find a weakness or an opportunity. That weakness is the magnetic strip that still exists on all EMV cards, according to Nathan Horn-Mitchem, senior vice president and chief information security officer at Provident Bank.

It's no surprise that London topped the chart of "Cashless Capitals" in a recent study, considering its status as a major fintech hub of the U.K. But this wasn't enough to make it the country's contactless capital.

The card networks recently admitted what consumers have long suspected—card signatures have become worthless for authentication at the point of sale. But that's not the end of this story.

Some of the biggest digital wallets in the world — including Alipay and WeChat Pay — succeed because they have very little in common with other big-brand wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

KFC is finally converting its point of sale terminals to accept EMV chip cards, opting for a semi-integrated system to accept all payment types.

There are still millions of merchants in the U.S. clinging to relic point of sale methods — and they are not easily swayed by fancy new touchscreens and mobile wallets. This means companies such as Verifone must go to greater lengths, just to meet them halfway.

As gas stations add EMV-chip card acceptance at the pump, they will also find themselves rebuilding systems for loyalty programs and special offers that were reliant on their older hardware.

Assuming that a wireless protocol is to be deployed for ease of use, the key decision to be made is the transport for communication between In-vehicle infotainment system (IVI) system and pump, writes Jim Carroll, chief technology officer at Mobica.

Many of the same protections for mobile payments, such as tokenization and single-use keys, can come into play to protect in-car payments, according to Jim Carroll, chief technology officer at Mobica.

To see significant growth in NFC payments in the U.S. a movement to standardize terminals across merchants would be necessary, coupled with a willingness from consumers to test, trust and use the technology, writes Beatta McInerney, business development manager for payments at ScanSource.

U.S. card issuers are adding contactless technology to credit and debit cards — but they are doing so in slow, small steps.

Banks and cardholders will be able to verify purchases, increase credit limit, add cards immediately, provide feedback to retailers, receive on-demand coupons, or upgrade card benefits.