Mid-Week Payments Recap: The ‘Best’ Of The Week So Far

We’re halfway through the business week, and there’s already been plenty to create a buzz across the payments and commerce ecosystem that have kept the newswires busy.

To name a few: Apple Pay, the Blockchain (and bitcoin), MasterCard’s ‘Selfie To Pay’, Visa’s biometrics push, EMV protection plans, restaurant hacking, and real-time payments made some of the biggest headlines of the week on PYMNTS. Catch your mid-week recap of what’s been trending so far.

New Data Shows Apple Pay Still Stuck In The Mud

  • A new report provides the latest projections of just how well Apple Pay is doing and how it’s expected to trend over the next 3-5 years. Spoiler alert: The projections peg a slow burn for the next few years, but the current stats aren’t so optimistic.

The Blockchain: ‘Just Like The Internet,’ Except That It’s Not

  • “It’s just like the Internet.” And so starts every conversation by the devoted that rationalizes why bitcoin and the blockchain is the technology that will forever change how financial services and payments happen around the world. Karen Webster weighs in on the touchy subject.

Will MasterCard Really Let Users Pay By ‘Selfie?’

  • MasterCard’s formal rollout of a “Pay By Selfie” feature is underway, which will make it possible for merchants to verify the identity of a shopper by looking at a photo of their face. That rollout will continue throughout the United States in 2016 and go global in 2017.

Another Bank Gets Serious About The Blockchain

  • In the latest of a slew of financial institutions to embrace bitcoin, SAN InnoVentures, the investment and venture arm of the Santander Group, is putting $4 million into Ripple’s Series A round.

Missed The EMV Deadline? There’s A Protection Plan For That

  • It’s no secret that the shift to EMV may have left many a merchant unprepared (and, in some cases, unwilling) to meet the Oct. 1 deadline last week. But in the wake of that seismic change in the U.S. payments industry, one payments tech company is willing to back up those late to the party.

Bitcoin Busts In Australia

  • Marred by concerns about illegal uses, Australian businesses are saying no to bitcoin en masse — spurred along by a move by Aussie banks last month to close the accounts of 13 of 17 bitcoin exchanges nationally.

Real-Time Payments Need Real-Time Commitment, Says NACHA

  • As businesses worldwide strive to streamline and modernize their payments systems, with an eye on speed, the questions remain: Just what is “real time” and what are the challenges that must be addressed?

Visa Bridges The EMV-Biometrics Gap

  • It can be easy to only see biometrics as a futuristic technology that is best suited for gaining access to something – like your mobile device. But Mark Nelsen, SVP of Risk Products and Business Intelligence at Visa, sat down with MPD CEO Karen Webster to discuss how bridging the gap between biometrics and EMV is taking secure payments to a new level.

The Hacking That Restaurants Like

  • The main problem with restaurant hacking is time – especially in QSR restaurants where speedy service is the essential value proposition. Customization, by its nature, just takes longer both on the preparation end and the ordering end, since the person taking it has to do more to mentally process it than normal. Catch more about this latest phenomenon.

As Payments Evolve, So Must Payments Executives 

  • As chief payments officer with Vesta, a global leader in the field of card-not-present transactions, Christopher Uriarte has spent more than a decade in the ever-evolving payments industry. Here, he weighs in on leading payments trends, the EMV transition and the industry challenges that keep him up at night.

To check out what else is HOT in the world of payments, click here.