The Electronic Transaction Association, a leading payments industry trade association, revealed Oct. 31, 2018, that it will extend discounts and benefits to 2019 members who join ETA or renew their ETA memberships during the 2018 calendar year. “When you become an 2019 ETA member in the 2018 calendar year, you will have the first chance to join an ETA committee — even before current ETA members!” the ETA wrote. “Plus, you will get the remaining 2018 months free of charge with all of the member benefits.”

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Worldwide, digital payments are growing at a rapid clip, driven largely by developing markets, according to a new report from Capgemini and BNP Paribas. The trend should be a wake-up call for U.S. banks to rethink their payment strategies to focus more on emerging economies, said Anirban Bose, CEO of Capgemini's financial services practice. Corporate treasurers, too, added Bruno Mellado, head of international payments and receivables at BNP Paribas.

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The year 2020 might have seemed on the far horizon when the Money20/20 conference series launched in 2011. Seven years later, the event’s global reach was on full display from Oct. 21 to 24, 2018, at the Venetian Las Vegas, drawing more than 11,500 attendees and 3,500 companies. Themed “The Money Revolution,” the show featured over 450 speakers with expertise ranging from technology, security, banking and finance to regulatory guidance and next-generation commerce.

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Philadelphia-based FreedomPay revealed Oct. 24, 2018, that it has added Apple Pay to DecisionPoint Network (DPN), a digital platform that brings merchant messaging, advertising and value-added services to POS screens. Apple Pay's simplicity and ease-of-use complements DPN product and services while providing consumers with privacy, security and access to their credit and debit card benefits and reward programs, company representatives stated. In an interview with The Green Sheet, Christopher R. Kronenthal, president and chief technology officer at FreedomPay, said DPN is part of a new retail era that is seamless and channel-agnostic.

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Striking a balance between fraud reduction and customer friction is the biggest challenge facing businesses today. Sixty-six percent of businesses recently surveyed by IDology said balancing these two concerns is their greatest challenge in fraud prevention, up from 40 percent a year ago "Consumers want protection, but they also want convenience. While fighting fraud it's important to remember that the vast majority of transactions that occur each day aren't attempted fraud; they're legitimate customers," the IDology 2018 Fraud Report states. Headquartered in Atlanta, IDology specializes in identity verification, authentication and fraud prevention for card-not-present environments. This is the sixth such report it has produced in as many years.

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Yesterday, Visa Inc. issued "Cash Discounting and Discount Offers Explained," a new bulletin devised to clarify what is and is not permitted under Visa Rules for cash discount programs. Visa stated that because of the increasing popularity of cash discount or discount offer programs, Visa is "reminding U.S. acquirers, merchants, processors and agents that discount offer programs should be evaluated to ensure compliance with the Visa Rules." That sounds straightforward enough, and Jonathan Razi, CEO of CardX, said his company welcomes Visa's guidance. "Visa's bulletin gives our industry much-needed clarity: 'cash discount' is not a loophole within the rules, and merchants that add a fee at the point of sale must comply with the requirements for surcharging, regardless of what they call the fee," he told The Green Sheet.

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More than 650 ATM industry stakeholders attended The National ATM Council's sixth annual convention and expo held Oct. 16 to 18 at Bally's Las Vegas. Bruce Renard, executive director at NAC, attributed the not-for-profit association's year-over-year growth to its hard-working staff and committee members and an expanding roster of sponsors, exhibitors, members and supporters.

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A Colorado convenience store chain has announced a new format that morphs the features of a convenience store with the product selection of a natural grocery and a fast casual restaurant. Plus there will be a mobile app that allows customers to order and pay ahead of time. In a recent press release, executives at the company, Choice Market, hailed the new format as "disruptive." A new 2,700 square foot Choice Market store, slated to open in Denver in 2019, will include a 2,700 square foot c-store, as well as fuel pumps, electric vehicle supercharging stations, a bike-share terminal and electric scooter charging stations, the company said.

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It will come as no surprise to most merchant level salespeople in the payments industry that recent research conducted by Selling Power on behalf of ValueSelling Associates Inc. found reaching prospects is the top challenge salespeople face in setting up initial meetings. Fifty-four percent of initial meetings required more than five touch points to secure an appointment. This applies to both phone and in-person meetings.

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Apple Pay is the go-to digital wallet for most debit card users. This is according to new data from Auriemma Consulting Group. An Auriemma study of debit card issuers indicates that Apple Pay makes up 77 percent of mobile wallet transactions, leaving little market share for competitors Samsung Pay and Google Pay, which account for 17 percent and 6 percent of mobile wallet payments respectively. Anita Solaman, director of Auriemma's Debit Management Roundtable, said high usage rates for Apple Pay may be a matter of demographics. "Apple users skew younger, and younger consumers are more likely to be debit [card] users," she said.

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Google Inc.’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., disclosed on Oct. 8, 2018, that it deactivated the Google+ platform for consumers after detecting a software flaw that can potentially expose private data to software developers. Security analysts said a bug in the Google+ API made it possible for third-party app developers to access data for users and individuals in their Google+ networks. Some have criticized Google for failing to report the vulnerability as soon as it was discovered; keeping the matter private only delayed the inevitable public relations nightmare, they stated.

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Just over a month after the Sept. 4, 2018, launch of the Electronic Transactions Association's Self-Regulation Program (ETA SRP), the global trade association has garnered positive reviews and broad support for the program across multiple payments channels. Designed to provide industry stakeholders with practical tools and guidance, the program sends a clear message to lawmakers that the payments industry adheres to consistently high standards of ethics, security and risk management, said Jason Oxman, CEO of the ETA.

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The Federal Reserve Board is considering changes to how the Reserve Banks support bank-to-bank payment services, with an eye toward real-time settlement. It has issued a request for public comment on potential actions to make real-time interbank settlement of payments a reality, but those actions could be several years off. "Consumers and businesses increasingly expect to be able to send and immediately receive payments at any time of the day, any day of the year," said Lael Brainard, a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. "A 24/7 economy with 24/7 real-time payments needs 24/7 real-time settlement. That is where we believe the Federal Reserve and the private sector together need to make investments in the future."

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Brand Innovators held its Top 100 Women in Brand Marketing and Women to Watch Awards and Gala celebration on Oct. 3, 2018, in New York City. Hosted by Viacom at the Viacom White Box venue, the day-long event featured keynote presentations and fireside-style chats with leading women marketers and digital transformation specialists. In opening comments, Lydia Daly, senior vice president for Viacom Velocity, said that while women make 85 percent of all brand purchases, they have begun to have more clout in the executive suite over the last decade.

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The trend toward ISOs and merchant level salespeople offering to support merchant cash discounting initiatives is gaining steam. VizyPay LLC, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, is the latest ISO to disclose it has created a cash discount program for card-accepting merchants. "The program creates a more reliable, transparent payments process for business owners and incentivizes customers to pay in cash," the company said in a statement.

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Verizon's 2018 Payment Security Report, published Sept. 25, 2018, identified widespread vulnerabilities in financial services. For the first time in six years, a majority of survey respondents had not fully implemented security best practices or complied with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), researchers found. While 87.3 percent of respondents are securely transferring cardholder data, only 71.8 percent comply with PCI DSS methods for storing store sensitive data, according to the report.

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Web security is about to get turbo charged with a new set of access security standards that eliminate the need for passwords, replacing them with cryptographically secure login routines. The new standards are the work of the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). FIDO (which stands for Fast IDentity Online) was created in 2012 to promote interoperability among authentication technologies and to foster an environment where web users don’t need to rely on multiple user names and passwords to access web services. W3C is an international Internet standards body.

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