Short takes on payments

Following are predictions from The Green Sheet as we usher in a new year. For more of the latest news, see News From The Wire on the left-hand side of this page.

Payment predictions for 2012

Prognostication goes with New Years like fruit cake goes with Christmas – many people don't like it, but many others find value in attempting to divine the future. However, even the best predictions, like the best fruitcakes, go stale quickly. With this in mind, here are some 2012 payment predictions:

Contactless

2012 will be the tipping point for mainstream contactless adoption, Visa Europe predicts. Visa Europe's Contactless Barometer study found consumers like contactless payments, but contactless POS terminal deployment is not keeping pace with the market. To see the report, please visit www.visaeurope.com/en/newsroom/news/articles/2011/contactless_barometer.aspx .

Security

More mobile threats, hacktivism, social-media exploitation and targeted attacks in 2012 are predicted by McAfee Labs, a division of Intel Corp.'s wholly owned security technology company McAfee Inc. Specifically it foresees:

• Industrial threats will mature and segment.
• Embedded hardware attacks will increase.
• Hacktivism and the groups such as Anonymous will continue to grow and evolve.
• Virtual currency systems will be under increasing attacks.
• 2012 will find a much focus on cyber war.
• More legitimate advertisers will use techniques developed by spammers to reach consumers.
• Consumer trust will be an issue when more rogue certificates and rogue certificate authorities are discovered.

For further information, go to www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-threat-predictions-2012.pdf?cid=WBB047 .

Infrastructure

There will be "fundamental shifts in payment transaction origination and acceptance in the United States," predicts a new Mercator Advisory Group report titled Moving Parts: EMV, NFC and Contactless Deployment in the U.S.

George Peabody, Director of Mercator Advisory Group's Emerging Technologies Advisory Service said, "The expected EMV rollout in the U.S. will require no little choreography on the part of merchants, acquirers and issuers because it will touch every payment device."

He added, "Given the coincident timing of the [Visa Inc.] EMV announcement and the arrival of NFC, merchants have to carefully plan their POS infrastructure investments over the next five years and more. Timing is everything." For more details, see www.mercatoradvisorygroup.com/index.php?doc=Emerging_Technologies&action=view_item&id=682&catid=5 .

Whether you want to upgrade your POS offerings, find a payment gateway partner, bone up on fintech regs or PCI requirements, find an upcoming trade show, read about faster payments, or discover the latest innovations in merchant acquiring, The Green Sheet is the resource for you. Since 1983, we've helped empower and connect payments professionals, starting with the merchant level salespeople who bring tailored payment acceptance and digital commerce tools, along with a host of other business services to merchants across the globe. The Green Sheet Inc. is also a proud affiliate of Bankcard Life, a premier community that provides industry-leading training and resources for payment professionals.

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