Visa’s recent acquisition push has brought the payments network giant a range of interesting assets, from merchant processing solutions, mobile and social media properties to technology solutions. However, Visa’s most recent acquisition, Fundamo of South Africa, may have the most interesting potential to influence the direction of global mobile payments, given its focus on using […]

Despite the challenges faced by previous payments consortia (think Spectrum, Pariter and ISIS), many continue to believe that partnership and “co-opetition” are the best ways to compete in emerging payments markets, like online and mobile payments. On Wednesday, May 25, 2011, another formidable group – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – […]

SAN DIEGO — The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) opened its Annual Meeting and Expo Wednesday with a keynote address from Sen. Chris Dodd, former Chair of the Senate Banking Committee and co-sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act. Dodd provided the audience of about 1,000 with an overview of the […]

The Basics – NSTIC and The Identity Ecosystem
On April 15, the White House announced the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) – a long-awaited framework for enhancing online security, while in theory, maintaining privacy, efficiency and consumer choice. The NSTIC paper outlines a public/private sector cooperative effort to develop and implement an Identity […]

The recent Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters bring home once again how fragile and precious our lives can be and reminds us too of how easily disaster can strike anyone.  Spurred by a sense of interconnectedness and purpose, people across the globe are using social media tools to make a difference, donating money quickly […]

March is American Red Cross month.  Not a made up “Hallmark holiday,” March was first declared Red Cross month by President Franklin Roosevelt back in 1943, and it serves as a great reminder that this quintessentially American philanthropic endeavor depends on volunteers to provide donations, blood and time.
Like many other enterprises, the American Red Cross […]

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Introduction
Despite the recent economic crisis, lagging unemployment and lingering consumer doubts about the economy, one bright spot has persisted in the retail landscape: eCommerce has continued to grow as a major force in global retail. Online retail sales are expected to reach nearly $250 billion by 2014, […]

In the New Year, innovative fee-generating strategies and the Facebook gaming phenomenon are among the issues forefront in the mind of Market Platform Dynamics’ Margaret Weichert. She continues our Resolution Series:
Focus fees on value-added services not penalties: Banks have been very clever — some might even say cagey — about developing a complex and confusing […]

Despite years of predictions suggesting that cash would one day disappear, recent data suggests cash is not only here to stay, but its usage may in fact be on the rise.  Many pundits have long believed that dirty, “inefficient” paper money would soon be replaced by plastic cards, mobile payments, and possibly even biometric payments […]

Point of Sale (POS) payment acceptance was once a relatively sleepy, almost commodity-like extension of the merchant acquiring business, with a handful of standard terminals manufactured by Verifone, Hypercom and Ingenico that were sold and deployed via merchant acquirers and ISOs.  These POS systems were joined by the large, integrated software solutions provided by IBM, […]