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IndustryUpdate

ANNOUNCEMENTS its security to avoid additional harm to the consumers
and local communities that community banks serve, the
ICBA stated.
AmEx drops signature requirement
Mastercard picks new entrants
On Dec. 11, 2017, five days after Discover Financial
Services revealed that as of April 2018, it will no longer to Start Path program
require signatures at the POS, American Express Co. Mastercard welcomed its largest, most diverse class
said it, too, is eliminating the requirement for merchants to the Mastercard Start Path program – the company's
to collect card members' signatures for all POS transac- global effort to support later-stage fintech and tech start-
tions starting in April 2018. The move, which applies ups, which was launched in 2014. The 11 selected com-
globally to all AmEx-accepting merchants, will help pro- panies from across five countries are developing new
vide a more consistent and simplified checkout experi- ways to use blockchain, protect digital identity, digitize
ence for merchants and card members in regions around donations and manage healthcare data, among other
the world, speed up the process of paying in store and solutions, Mastercard stated.
help reduce merchants' operating expenses associated
with retaining signatures, the company stated. PAI named Louisville business of the year

BlueStar earns PCI P2PE validation Louisville, Ky.,-based ATM provider Payment Alliance
International was named 2017 Business of the Year in
BlueStar, a global distributor of digital identifica- the very large company category by business journal
tion, mobility, POS, RFID, digital signage and secu- Louisville Business First, PAI stated, adding it was
rity technology solutions, reported that the PCI Security honored for demonstrating business excellence, market
Standards Council certified BlueStar to provide point- leadership and community involvement. "Throughout
to-point encryption (P2PE) key injections. "This P2PE the years, PAI has been blessed with a talented team
attestation of validation adds BlueStar to one of only 18 of committed employees and some of the most loyal
key injection facilities across the globe who can provide customers found anywhere," said PAI co-founder John
this service," BlueStar said. "BlueStar will continue to J. Leehy. "It is their hard work and dedication which
work exclusively with value-added resellers and offer serves as the real foundation for PAI's impressive run of
a one-stop-shop for the channel's most comprehensive growth and success."
mPOS and traditional POS In-a-Box solutions."

Chargeback Gurus CEO recognized RESEARCH
Chargeback Gurus, a provider of e-commerce charge-
back and fraud prevention solutions, said its CEO Srii GoCardless tops Juniper fintech leaderboard
Srinivasan has recently been heralded by three organiza- In Fintech Futures: Market Disruption, Leading Innovations
tions. She received the FinTech Entrepreneur of the Year & Emerging Opportunities 2017-2022, Juniper Research
– USA in the Finance Monthly FinTech Awards 2018. ranked the top five leaders in the emerging fintech sec-
Those awards acknowledge individuals, firms, startups tor, which Juniper values at $223 billion by revenue in
and banks that are recognized as leaders in their area of 2018, and $411 billion by 2022, growing at an average
expertise. Srinivasan was also named among Innovate annual rate of 16.5 percent, according to the report.
Finance's Women in FinTech Powerlist, a list that cel- Juniper assigned the No. 1 spot to GoCardless, followed
ebrates women shaping the fintech sector. And she by Onfido (2), Square (3), Lemonade (4) and Kabbage (5).
was shortlisted for the upcoming Women in IT Awards
USA 2018 for Entrepreneur of the Year. Organized by EMVco data shows EMV growth
Information Age, the Women in IT program provides a
high-profile platform for celebrating women in IT and Technical body EMVCo published transaction data
identifying new female role models in the industry, showing that 58.9 percent of card-present contact and
Chargeback Gurus added. contactless transactions globally were EMV (Europay,
Mastercard and Visa)-enabled between July 2016 and
ICBA sues Equifax June 2017. This represents an increase over the prior
year, when 42.4 percent of transactions were EMV-
The Independent Community Bankers of America filed enabled. The data reflects average transaction volumes
a lawsuit against Equifax Inc. for its recent breach of over a 12-month period to account for seasonal varia-
145.5 million consumer records and 209,000 payment tions. Given the ongoing rate of EMV chip technology
cards. Bank of Zachary, La., and First State Bank in adoption, EMVCo acknowledged that real-time figures
Barboursville, W.Va., joined ICBA in the suit. ICBA's for transaction volumes today are likely to be higher
lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern than the reported June 2017 figure.
District of Georgia to require Equifax to compensate all
community banks harmed by the breach and to improve

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