Retailers

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have grown rapidly in the past year, prompting more mainstream acceptance.

Voice-based payments are part of the "instant gratification" consumers will expect from payment and financial services companies, writes Hicham Tahiri, a Paris-based fintech entrepreneur.

Digital payment brands like Venmo are achieving scale quickly by recognizing that no one wakes up thinking they need to make a transaction. They really focus more on what they have to pay for, according to CO-OP Financial Services' Shazia Manus.

Neither the acquirer processing the payment, nor relevant regulatory bodies ever know that these payments are actually for illicit goods, making transaction laundering particularly dangerous and far-reaching, writes Ron Teicher, CEO of EverCompliant.

With the holiday shopping season, there is an inevitable dark side — an increase in transactions means an increase in fraud. This is to some extent the cost of doing business; fraud will always be a percentage of overall transaction volume.

Along with crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, cryptocurrency can improve access to payments, credit and other financial services for SMEs, writes Eugene Green, CEO and founder of WishFinance.

With the wide-scale adoption of mobile phones, and the use of NFC and QR codes for payments, the card brands most likely see a threat to their business model and, in a defensive move against potential disruptors, are wisely embracing the spirit of mobile, writes Jeremy Gumbley, CTO at Creditcall.

On his last day at the agency, Keith Noreika called for scaling back the Bank Holding Company Act, arguing that it burdens banks with duplicative regulation and restricts their economic potential.

The right platform can detect unusual behaviors and block fraudulent transactions as they occur, while still allowing real customers to make legitimate transactions without interruptions, writes Dave Excell, CTO and co-founder of Featurespace.

Black Friday is making headway with bargain-hunting U.K. consumers, but their 3 billion pounds ($4 billion) in spending is doing nothing to help Britain’s troubled retail centers.

Antiquated testing strategies result in code being deployed with a variety of vulnerabilities and bugs, which is especially dangerous given the current payment landscape of expanding endpoints, consumer devices and payment apps, writes Mark Medlin, chief technology officer of Paragon Application Systems.

By inserting the issuer into the dispute process at the outset and arming them with the necessary robust data to prove both customer identity and intent of sale, we can prevent the loss of millions in sales, writes Matthew Katz, CEO of Verifi.

While many companies already have a compliance officer in place, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation requires a data protection officer, writes Sudeep Nadkarni, senior vice president and head of banking and financial services for NIIT Technologies.

Until FinCEN decides to explicitly regulate transaction laundering, we will not see an organized effort at the state level, writes Ron Teicher, CEO of EverCompliant.

Do the Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail holidays still have meaning in a world where sales promotions are perennial and e-commerce is embedded in nearly every form of digital communication? According to data, they do, and more now than ever.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $2.9 billion deal to buy a slice of China’s largest hypermart chain pits it against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the world’s largest retail arena.

After years of watching shoppers flit from store to store in search of the biggest deals, U.S. retailers are hoping their attempts at building some loyalty will finally pay off this holiday season.

By employing a multilayered approach to mobile security that combines device authentication with the latest user identification measures, retailers can establish maximum trust not only with their users, but also in the device being used to transact with them, writes Michael Lynch, chief strategy officer for InAuth.

Merchants’ fates are inextricably linked to what customers want. So, as they continue to embrace frictionless experiences, merchants are under mounting pressure to deliver or risk losing out, writes Joseph Daly, COO of North American Payment Processing for Paysafe.

The advent of blockchain technology may prove to be disruptive to traditional credit reporting agencies by decentralizing data aggregation and allowing consumers to take ownership of their data through a personalized wallet they could share with prospective lenders, writes Alexander Koles, CEO, founder and managing director of Evolve Capital Partners.