Point-of-sale

In the past year, Verifone's European market share has grown more than 10 percentage points, and Felix declares it her proudest moment in a career that spans 26 years.

At the four-month mark after the U.S. EMV liability shift went into effect, it's still a waiting game; larger issuers and merchants tend to be on top of the chip-card situation and many smaller ones are not, but experts say it's too early to draw conclusions.

Verifone, which is challenged to move beyond its reliance on selling traditional payments hardware, is producing an almost dizzying array of products in hopes of diversifying.

Any way you slice it, 2015 was the year of fintech. From Bitcoin to marketplace lending and everything in between, fintech was a venture capital honey trap and a cocktail party buzzword.

Vending machines were among the first categories to accept contactless mobile payments, but they still rely heavily on cash for impulse snack purchases — at least for now.

Global Payments Inc. has finalized an agreement to distribute Mobeewave’s contactless mobile card acceptance technology to its Canadian clients beginning this spring.

For years, the financial services industry has relied on tactics such as education campaigns, sales pitches and financial penalties to get merchants to upgrade their technology. Ironically, the bad security that led to Target's 2013 data breach may have been the strongest way to deliver this message.

It may seem odd for a vendor of payment acceptance hardware to discredit EMV security, which is commonly seen as a catalyst for hardware sales, but that's exactly what MagTek is doing.

Already facing technology-driven threats to their relevancy, independent sales organizations (ISOs) face another dilemma: should ISOs spread their wings with numerous acquirers and processors, or stick with one that provides the best deal for servicing merchant clients?

Subscription billing is now mainstream. Savvy consumers are happily paying small monthly subscription fees for their favorite products rather than forking over a big up-front payment.