From Sluggish to Supercharged: Changing the World with Real-Time Payments

This week saw leading voices in the payments and fintech community gather in Amsterdam for EBAday. Real-time payments was definitely one of the big buzzwords of the event.

Are You Being Outsmarted by Fraudsters When it Comes to EMV?

Organized crime rings have October 1 circled on their calendars.

The Fraud Women’s Network – bringing together all women involved in the fraud prevention arena

If you’re a woman working in the anti-fraud space, you’re well aware of how male dominated it can be. Even if you’re not in the space, the aforementioned statement should come as little to no surprise.

EMV Timelines and Impact (What Happens if you are NOT ready)

October 1, 2015 will likely be an ordinary day for most Americans. But to retailers, October 1 marks an important day for payments. That’s because on October 1, EMV hits America.

Survey says…90% of banks want to work with Retailers, 44% claim the feeling is mutual

Ovum have released some compelling payment insights in the inaugural Global Payments Insight study. The big one that stood out for me was that the payment processing behemoths of the card networks are at risk.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you…the FinTech Fight Club

In this latest (actually first) installment of Ask the Experts, I sit down with esteemed industry analyst Nick Holland. In addition to serving as Retail Payments Practice Lead at Javelin Strategy & Research, Nick is also the brains (and brawn) behind the nascent Fintech Fight Club. First rule of FinTech Fight Club? Don’t talk about Fintech Fight Club. The next “FFC” will be at a yet-to-be-named location somewhere in the contiguous US states in May…be sure to follow Nick on twitter @nickster2407 for updates.

Change is Coming to a POS Terminal Near You

A seismic shift is set to occur this October when EMV implementation hits the payments ecosystem in the US. Merchant point-of-sale (POS) terminals occupy the epicenter of that shift. Just how disruptive the change will be depends on how motivated merchants are to upgrade their existing POS terminals to chip-capable ones and how ready they are to help consumers through the process.

Millennial Musings: what’s in their (digital and physical) wallets?

Based on some industry estimates, millennials comprise 98% of all human beings on earth…and that’s pretty sizable. Now while other estimates are a tad smaller, the millennial generation is still vast, not to mention influential. And with so much buying power now and into the future, one can understand why.

Millennials on Millennials Series – Who are we?

If we are to rate buzzwords, you would be hard pressed to find one that is more overused and misunderstood than Millennial. The generation label that has been given to today’s target demographic—individuals born from approximately 1980 to 1995 (definitions vary slightly on the edges)—shoehorns a group that is as diverse as we have seen in any generation…a single defining word, “millennial.” My goal is to dig into this subject, discuss different aspects of this generation and help the reader get a firsthand understanding of how we define ourselves, in our own words.

Expert Insight: Looking below the surface of payments disruption

Recently, social network Facebook announced that P2P payments can be made through its Messenger service. Square has expanded its Square Cash service to businesses and introduced the "Cashtag" as a means for sending P2P payments. Both are interesting efforts by companies looking to leverage social networks as tools for financial services. They also illustrate something very important about what is going on in payments right now.

‘Cause I’m the Taxman, Yeah, I’m the Taxman

While many of us have a proclivity for the Beatles, many of us also have a proclivity for procrastinating. We get the job done—and typically done well—but not until the deadlines beckon. And this seems to be more rampant for thousands, if not millions of us, during tax season. For those who are counting, taxes are due in a mere 8 days - less than 2 weeks left and agita is setting in. So this tax season, let’s do our best to prevent heartburn and indigestion…or worse. And let’s take the figurative tax returns by the horns. It might be too late to change our ‘wait until the last minute’ habits, but there are ways to make tax filing quick and easy.

New from Hasbro: Risk, the Mobile Wallet Edition

Some of you might remember the 1997 classic, "Mo Money Mo Problems." And for those who do, thank you. Eighteen years later, it’s still about money, but in this case, a more apt title could be “Mo Mobile Less Problems” because, well, mobile payments should alleviate problems, especially when you consider the growing field of viable major players.