POS and Retail

Banking lobbies are still opposed to the Durbin Amendment, which would hurt a free market, writes Mark Horwedel, CEO of the Merchant Advisory Group.

As payments guru David Birch notes, multiple currencies spur competition and innovation, and can reduce stagnation, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Many retailers want to beat Amazon at its own game, providing fast and streamlined checkouts that attack the tedium of waiting in line or staring at a card terminal screen for further instructions.

Distribution methods are constantly changing and being altered so that the maximum amount of people can gain access to these unregulated currencies, writes Mariam Nishanian, a representative at Dentacoin.

Removing friction across channels and payment types not only leads to a transformative digital banking experience, it also helps ensure those positive outcomes translate to business success for financial institutions, writes Mark Little, senior user experience researcher for digital channels at Fiserv.

For years, it looked to some like Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was simply following in the footsteps of Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest e-commerce company. But when Amazon’s $13.7 billion bid for Whole Foods Market Inc. sent shock waves across the retail industry, Ma looked prescient.

If tokenization can help us recapture liquidity not only for currencies, but by digitizing the value of all assets, time and work in a more flexible, fair exchange, that’s exciting, writes Jason English, vice president of protocol marketing for Sweetbridge.

A bot-powered wave is on the way, and some firms will adapt, others will simply perish. It will be survival of the fittest, writes Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup.

The real lag behind fintech started when banks rested on those online and mobile banking laurels and allowed other players in the mobile space to bypass them in working toward mobile point of sale payment services, writes Jack Jania, senior vice president of strategic payment alliances at Gemalto.

An analysis of a test shows runtime application self-protection (RASP) successfully defends mobile banking apps targeted by BankBot against overlay attacks, writes Frederik Mennes, manager of the security competence center at Vasco Data Security.

Connected devices, mobile and new processing standards require a larger technology upgrade than the quick updates of the past, according to Rajesh Venkatraman, director of worldwide payments at IBM.

Chatbots are the next big thing in payments. But a poor in-chat commerce strategy can turn off consumers and create bad user experiences.

Companies involved in content sharing or social media are seeing fraudsters try to create new accounts for their sites with fake credentials through bot attacks.

The European directive is an opportunity for U.S. institutions to update data protection, writes Seth Ruden, senior fraud consultant for ACI Worldwide.

Both merchants and consumers still see the act of making a payment as a barrier and again look to technology to enhance the experience, writes Chris Koide, senior advisor and vice president of financial services for Bambora North America.

The ability to expedite information with payment, specifically remittances, is the real challenge, writes Mike Fortmann, vice president of Southwest Region for NVoicepay.

Usernames, passwords, device authentication and even biometrics have vulnerabilities. Behavioral identity is much harder for crooks to crack, writes Robert Capps, a vice president at NuData Security.

For issuers, higher online and mobile conversion rates should translate to increased payment volume transacted on their cards, but it opens up a new avenue for intense jockeying over top of wallet status, writes Michael Jabbara, director of digital development markets for Visa.

The ransomware threat is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better — if it ever does. And small merchants and ATMs may be the most at risk.

With close to 900 million monthly active users, WeChat is the most popular social app in China, supporting real-time messaging, social networking, e-wallet and many other functions, writes Franklin Chu, managing director for Azoya USA.