POS and Retail

With Apple’s WWDC, Zelle, PayPal’s Venmo and Square Cash, competition in the consumer payments space is about to kick into high gear, writes Josh Hawkins, vice president of marketing for the Boston-based digital payments company Circle.

A big reason Wal-Mart Stores Inc. paid $3.3 billion for Jet.com last year was the startup’s unique “smart-cart” system. Now, it’s coming to Wal-Mart’s own site.

AR technology is not all that new, but its wider support could bring fresh ideas to brick-and-mortar retail.

It’s not a question of "if" mobile contactless and camera-based payments will become the norm – it’s a matter of "when," writes Julian Wallis, East Kilbride, U.K.-based sales director in the payments group at Rambus.

The digital era is changing a lot of habits, including dining. Mobile devices and other technologies now play a vital role in bringing patrons into coffee shops, fast food restaurants and sit-down establishments.

A trip to the doctor's office requires a lot of forms, oftentimes collecting the same information for different purposes. This redundancy is a clear example of where technology can offer a better experience.

Cloud technology has made it possible to leverage APIs so that two pieces of software talk to each other and stay updated in real time, which dramatically improves the user experience, writes Sanjeev Kriplani, senior vice president of product at Bill.com.

Giving away its speaker to Pixel devotees isn't just about getting these devices into homes; it's about getting them to the users most likely to favor Google over Amazon, writes Daniel Wolfe, Editor in Chief at PaymentsSource.

With AT&T dropping out of the program and Macy's focusing more on its own loyalty scheme, American Express is absorbing the first serious blows from key members in its multi-merchant Plenti Rewards Program.

Many bank-driven responses to fintech startups are "force fitting" traditional services, and don't fully meet new consumers' demands for social interaction, writes Ted Bissell, global director for digital consulting at Axis Corporate.

Like all major and some tier-two U.S. payment processors, TSYS wants to participate in less competitive and higher growth markets overseas to sustain long-term growth, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Credit bureaus can address identity theft by advancing the robustness of their security processes and abandoning outdated systems that rely on our personal information, writes Jason Brvenik, chief technology officer for NSS Labs.

What makes Shake Shack's cashless store so potentially powerful — even if it's only one location in Manhattan — is what the burger chain can do when every customer is known to it.

Losses in sales and penalties from chargebacks may hurt business' sustainability, writes Monica Eaton-Cardone, chief operating officer at Cargebacks911 and Global Risk Technologies.

Competition between card networks, tech titans Facebook and Google, Chinese fintech proxies Paytm and Hike, and M-Pesa will be fierce, and offer signs how other large emerging payments markets may evolve, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

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.

Two years after the EMV liability shift date, many merchants still aren't EMV compliant. By some counts, about half of U.S. merchants are still swiping cards despite the risk.

Equifax mismanaged its recovery by asking for personal information to determine if a user was affected and then issuing a predictable PIN code to those who requested a credit lock, moves that diluted confidence in the company, writes Timothy Crosby, senior security consultant for Spohn Security Solutions.

It has taken nearly two years since the EMV liability shift in the U.S., but restaurants are adapting to new point-of-sale technology that includes EMV and mobile capabilities.

Diminished returns from basic card breaches will turn crooks' attention to much larger and more dangerous attacks on entire payment systems, writes John Christly, global chief information security officer for Netsurion.