The card brands set a deadline of October 2015 for U.S. merchants to have their POS terminals upgraded to accept Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) chip-based payment cards. Whether or not merchants will meet that deadline is open to debate, but Milan, Italy-based mobile POS (mPOS) solution firm JUSP S.p.A. is gearing up to have its EMV-compliant device ready for the U.S. market.

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Top ten U.S. acquirer Vantiv Inc. continued its expansion into the prepaid card industry with a card program that targets the gambling market. With Las Vegas-based Sightline Payments, which specializes in payment solutions for the gambling sector, Vantiv unveiled a prepaid card designed to leverage casinos' existing loyalty card programs for a more convenient and streamlined solution for gamblers and casino operators.

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The Smart Card Alliance's conference advisory committee is seeking proposals from qualified professionals who wish to speak at its 2014 Payment Summit. The event will take place Feb. 5 to 7, in Salt Lake City. Proposals will be accepted through Oct. 23, 2013, via the alliance's online submission form at www.cvent.com/events/2014-payments-summit/custom-36-0a3ced5103c144ba83de42b933b495c5.aspx?RefID=Speaking .

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In its annual assessment of the open-loop, network-branded prepaid card market in the United States, Mercator Advisory Group reported that the market experienced "much smaller growth" than the advisory originally estimated. The open-loop market grew by "only" 6 percent in 2012, reaching $194.5 billion, up from $184.1 billion in 2011, according to Mercator.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve believes that the U.S. payments infrastructure can be faster and more efficient, with the help of the Federal Reserve. The central bank of the United States said in a Sept. 10, 2013, report that "gaps" in the payments system limit payment services for some consumers and that opportunities around new technologies like mobile wallets can fill those gaps. The Fed acknowledged itself as the entity that can provide the necessary coordination to bring stakeholders together and improve the system.

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It has become an annual rite of passage. Each year Apple Inc. reveals new iterations of its iconic iPhone that do not include near field communication (NFC), and each year critics call it a serious blow to the prospects for the proximity payments technology. On Sept. 10, 2013, Apple unveiled two new iPhone models, neither of which are integrated with NFC. But Randy Vanderhoof, Director of the Smart Card Alliance, said Apple's lack of NFC adoption is of little significance to the direction of the NFC market, and naysayers mistake Apple's deliberate approach to technology adoption as a rejection of NFC.

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Conventional wisdom holds that most of the growth in the global prepaid card market is coming from developing markets. But in a Sept. 11, 2013, conference call with financial analysts, a MasterCard Worldwide executive said a big expansion in prepaid usage is occurring in Europe.

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The France-based Smart Payment Association recently commented on the new European Directive on Payments (PSD2), an initiative designed to increase adoption of innovative payment instruments by encouraging competition in the retail payment market and building consumer confidence in the region's reinforced legal system pertaining to payments. The association affirmed its ongoing support for the European payments industry, the development of stronger standardization efforts and the new directive's central objective to promote the smart card over cloud-based methods of electronic payment.

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In a Sept. 12, 2013, bulletin, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reminded employers that they cannot require their employees to receive wages on prepaid payroll cards. The bulletin also outlines the federal consumer protections that apply to paycards, such as fee disclosure regulations, access to account histories, limited liability for unauthorized card usage and error resolution rights.

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The federal government recently signaled a truce in its campaign against medical marijuana dispensaries. The move begins to put to rest legal ambiguities that had resulted in many banks refusing to open demand deposit accounts and merchant accounts for state-sanctioned dispensaries. In a statement released in August 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice said it will no longer pursue prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries that operate in accordance with state laws and regulations.

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As the October 2013 start date for Universal Credit (UC) in the United Kingdom approaches, the U.K. government agency in charge of implementing the program is being criticized for program mismanagement and for setting an overly ambitious timeline for the rollout of the controversial program.

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Debt collection services are apparently in the business of endorsing prepaid card products to their clients. John Monderine, Chief Executive Officer at Rapid Recovery Solutions Inc., said prepaid cards offer financially insolvent individuals a way of managing their finances and rising out of debt. However, Monderine pointed out that prepaid cards endorsed by celebrities have had both beneficial and detrimental effects on consumers' ability to escape debt.

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When merchants ponder their way forward with mobile payments, do they go with a dongle-based solution, a tablet, an upgraded countertop POS or a virtual POS accessed through a PC? The one thing merchants know for sure is that consumers are starting to expect the option of paying for in-store purchases with mobile devices. It is left to merchants and their service providers to figure out the rest.

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In July 2013, the Federal Reserve Board gave its annual report to Congress on the state of the general purpose reloadable prepaid card sector as it relates to government benefit programs. The annual summary revealed that federal, state and local government offices reported disbursing more than $1 trillion in benefit payments in 2012, with 13 percent of those disbursals being accomplished via prepaid cards.

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The IPayments Forum and its nonprofit parent organization, the ATM Industry Association, recently rebranded its joint venture to support the evolution of the ATM into a payments hub. The ATM Acquirers Alliance, formed in February 2013, is now the Integrated Payments Alliance. A. Lyle Elias, Chairman of the IPF and an ATMIA founding director, said the name change represents a new direction for the ATM industry and a route which can benefit ISOs that market and service ATMs.

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As the October 2013 start date for Universal Credit (UC) in the United Kingdom approaches, the U.K. government agency in charge of implementing the program is being criticized for program mismanagement and for setting an overly ambitious timeline for the rollout of the controversial program. In a Sept. 5, 2013, report, the NAO criticized the DWP for "weak management, weak control and poor governance" of the rollout.

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It is no surprise that pressures on the traditional acquirer business model have caused major disruption in the payments industry. From complex regulatory intervention to upstart technology firms eating away at acquirers' margins, the list of industry disruptors is long. A new impact note from Aite Group LLC throws into sharp relief the extent of those pressures and conveys the dire warning that acquirers that remain on the path of standard POS terminals and price differentiation strategies are destined for extinction.

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the government body that oversees the television, Internet, radio communications and telecommunication industries in Australia, issued warnings to two calling card providers, accusing them of withholding information from consumers about prepaid card products.

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Communications Concepts Inc. honored The Green Sheet Inc. for the twelfth year in a row. The publication garnered three awards in the APEX 2013 Awards for Publication Excellence, and wants to thank the winning writers for their fine articles, as well as all those who, by sharing their expertise, have made the publication a standout in the trade publication sphere.

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