November, 2021

• 1 November

  Payments 3.0: The Chips are Down. So Are the Cards

  

  Wallets could be a lot emptier by this time next year, and it will have nothing to do with the spending capacity of consumers. As Digital Transactions reported in September (“Out of the Chips”), a pandemic-driven shortage in computer chips is hitting the payments industry. Now, as cards expire, issuers …
• 1 November

  Security Notes: Quantum Money: Good News, Bad News

  

  Quantum entities are fundamentally offensive to our experience and intuition. They are like a four-dimensional physical universe. We can’t imagine a world with length, width, and height plus a fourth dimension. But we can handle this notion mathematically. The same is true for quantum entities. The illustrious Richard Feynman, one …
• 1 November

  Specialized Players Claim a Rising Share of Merchant Acquiring

  

  Despite a temporary setback at the start of the pandemic, merchant acquiring is getting back on a growth track that will see revenue expand at an 11.3% annual clip through 2025, nearly equaling the 11.8% rate chalked up from 2015 to 2019, according to a report and forecast released last …

October, 2021

• 1 October

  Payments 3.0: Three Keys to Crypto Acceptance

  

  When the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin in 2009, it seemed that the U.S. dollar and other currencies would have a new competitor. However, radical forecasts of digital currencies becoming the coin of the realm have not come to pass. Will Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies take their place alongside cash …
• 1 October

  Security Notes: The Root of Quantum Mystery

  

  Random means without order. Strange that disorder serves as the foundation for the most comprehensive order of nature: modern physics. Physics today asserts that, concerning the microcosmos, what happens next is totally unpredictable per individual event. Only the behavior of a group of events is subject to prediction. Matter behaves …
• 1 October

  A Busy Affirm Tests a New Debit Card

  

  Will a debit card be coming soon from Affirm Inc.? A new card product that taps the user’s checking account for in-full purchases or installments is in beta testing with “several hundred people,” at buy now, pay later specialist Affirm Holdings Inc., the company’s chief executive, Max Levchin, told equity …

September, 2021

• 1 September

  Payments 3.0: How the Prepaid Rule Tipped the Market

  

  The prepaid market has been upended and shrunk by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s prepaid accounts rule. Prepaid cards were a popular money-management tool for low-income Americans. And even though the cards never generated many complaints, the bureau decided they needed to be heavily regulated. Now, direct-to-consumer prepaid cards are …
• 1 September

  Security Notes: Quantum Unknown: A Cautionary Tale

  

  When automotive vehicles came on the road, they were described as “fast horses.” When the transistor replaced the vacuum tube, it was described as a “smaller switch.” And now that quantum computers are in the offing, they are being described as “faster computing machines.” We know very well that the …
• 1 September

  The DoJ on Debit Routing: A Tougher Rule, Please

  

  The U.S. Department of Justice in August lent its weight to a proposed rule from the Federal Reserve Board that would reinforce merchants’ choice of networks for e-commerce transactions arising from debit cards. At the same time, it suggested the rule could be made more stringent. Justice’s support for the …

July, 2021

• 1 July

  Payments 3.0: The CFPB Is Gearing Up

  

  Signs of the Covid-19 pandemic fading away include things like open restaurants, fully packed stadiums, and a return to travel. But for the financial-services industry, the real end of the pandemic may be signaled when regulators knock at the door. During the pandemic, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau extended certain …