POS and Retail

For merchants to reap the full benefits of the modern mobile payments ecosystem, their payments strategy can go beyond accepting a contactless tap-and-go card and encourage use of smartphone payments at the point of sale, writes Jason Oxman, CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association.

Two watch sellers are diving into a pilot that will test whether social media and blockchain can power alternatives to Amazon and eBay for e-commerce sales, shopping, payments, risk management and marketing.

As Wall Street keeps a wary eye on Amazon.com Inc.’s possible foray into finance, Discover Financial Services’ new chief executive officer isn’t too worried about technology-based invaders.

Collaboration is a critical part of how we prevent cyberattacks from turning into breaches that put consumer payment card data at risk, writes Lance Johnson, executive director of PCI SSC.

As with many mobile apps and services, I think we underestimated the fragmentation issue. That includes consumers preferring different operating ecosystems, and also different versions of Android or iPhone hardware, according to Ankit Kumar, manager of digital payments and mobile financial services at Gemalto.

Global Payments hopes to strengthen its position among restaurant merchant acquirers by paying $415 million in cash for food services and software company Sicom Systems.

It could be tempting to pick the easiest pricing option to understand and move on. But other times, more complex pricing options can really help businesses save money, writes Angelo Grecco, chief business development officer for CardConnect.

China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is partnering with Saxo Payments Banking Circle, a European B2B payments platform specializing in online cross-border transfers.

Even among the experts in the payments industry, people still use cash. Banks can't ignore this, according to Paul Amisano, senior vice president for enterprise digital and payments strategy at BB&T.

The Merchant Customer Exchange may not have succeeded, but there is still value to the concept that drove the retailer-driven wallet, according to Brian Crist, chief payments counsel at Uber.

If a merchant seeking to avoid credit card fees turned to cash discounting, it was at least partly because the other option — putting a surcharge on credit card use — was complicated and illegal in many states.

Stripe’s software development kit, application programming interfaces and other recently added features for merchants place it in almost all parts of the payment value chain beyond its e-commerce forte.

Terminal provider paycosmos has launched its "ISO in a Box" payment platform, saying the software provides everything an independent sales organization needs to support agents and acquire merchant contracts.

FirstSense's technology is designed to spot and prevent fraud as it happens. It will operate with First Data's fraud protection and transaction authorization engine, helping financial institutions identify payment cards at risk.

Card-on-file tokenization systems enable payment details to be instantly refreshed when a card is lost, stolen or expires, according to André Stoorvogel a director at Rambus.

Instead of getting paid directly from buyers via PayPal, eBay will send funds directly to sellers’ bank accounts and charge lower fees.

Merchants increasingly fall short of security standards as digital commerce innovation pressures risk management.

A week after revealing its Stripe Terminal as a way to enter the physical retail space, the online payments provider plans to add financial support through cash advances to the services it provides merchant clients.

The STATES Act allows the industry to resolve conflicts between state and federal laws by granting legitimate cannabis companies access to the financial system in marijuana-legalized states, writes Heather Peterson Altepeter, CEO of the National Merchants Association.

The Face Login will enable users of the Paytm payment platform to log into the app simply by looking into their phones, a move designed to add a biometric layer to prevent phishing attacks.