Transaction Processing

If you want to see a rowdy debate, try gathering a group of colleagues and posing the question of whether or not fintech companies should be regulated. In posing this question to several groups of payments professionals, I have observed that the same arguments, pro and con, keep coming up. …

Quick Chip, a Visa Inc. protocol for streamlining the EMV transaction process, is now available on processor Worldpay’s network. Announced Monday, the service reduces a chip card terminal’s transaction time by approximately 3 seconds, Worldpay says. Quick Chip eliminates the need to leave the card in the reader while waiting …

• Former Heartland Payment Systems Inc. chief executive Bob Carr has returned to the payments industry with Beyond, a payments provider. Announced Monday, Beyond, on its Web site, says it will provide payment processing, integrated payments, lending services, and business-management services. Carr had been the leader of Heartland, which Global Payments Inc. acquired for …

The increasing commercialization of mobile payments is showing up in a proliferation of so-called Pays from a bevy of banks, tech companies, and merchants. Time was, a cutting-edge alternative-payment service involved entering card or bank-account details into a branded interface on a laptop computer. Mobile payments were nascent, held back …

With the rise of APIs and the race for consumer loyalty, payments players are under pressure to innovate as never before. The result? A new openness to outside developers. If anything in the payments business can be said to approximate a company’s crown jewels, it’s the code that controls, uniquely …

The ATM EMV conversion is only partly done, and now deployers are beginning preparations for Windows 10 only a few years after upgrading to Windows 7. ATM deployers can take solace in the fact that their EMV upgrades are going faster than merchants’ conversion to chip card acceptance. But lest …

The same U.S. banks that have retarded progress in digital payments shouldn’t be entrusted with anything approaching a monopoly on implementing real-time payments systems, says Mark Horwedel. Lately, the Federal Reserve Board has been shepherding a cross-industry effort to build a faster, more efficient, and more secure payments system in …

Whatever their personal feelings are about marijuana usage, the growth of the legal cannabis industry in many states will force bankers and payments executives to examine the business prospects of serving that industry, according to an executive with a regional automated clearing house association. While marijuana remains illegal under federal …

Merchants and card issuers have been hearing for several years that the advent of EMV chip cards at the point of sale in the United States would drive fraud into card-not-present channels, and now evidence is emerging that this is happening with a vengeance, even with companies like airlines that …

• Processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) reported its revenues grew 60.2% year-over-year in the first quarter, to $1.2 billion from $739.4 million. Net income attributable to common shareholders was $105.9 million, up 16.8% from $90.6 million. For 2017, the company is raising its total revenue and net revenue guidance by …