Ekata News and Reports

Fraud detection and prevention powered by machine learning (ML) platform Ravelin is partnering with global payments giant Mastercard to deliver an enhanced solution that integrates digital identity verification capabilities to enable secure ...

Mastercard-owned eCommerce verification platform Ekata on Tuesday (Nov. 2) announced it has teamed with Singapore’s Advance.ai on a suite of B2B digital identity offerings and risk prevention solutions for customers ...

Proving that customers are who they claim to be is one of the big challenges for payments providers as eCommerce sales surge. To “advance its identity verification efforts,” Mastercard will acquire ...

Compliance with financial regulations market-to-market around the globe is increasingly automated yet relies on the same human emotion that undergirds all forms of exchange: trust. In other words, banks and financial ...

Open banking regulations and proposals have progressed worldwide in recent months. Lawmakers in China, Singapore and Thailand, for example, have all either upgraded or recently introduced new laws surrounding the ...

The rise of telemedicine services is forcing a greater need to secure the data that is exchanged. In this month’s Merchants Guide To Navigating Global Payment Regulations, Cary Breese, CEO ...

A recent report released by the United Nations found that 132 out of 194 countries have now introduced data protection regulations of some kind, all varying in terms of what ...

The end of the year marks the deadline for European migration to strong customer authentication (SCA), a 15-month extension from the original deadline. But the change, originally mandated by the Revised ...

In its March 2020 brief “Developments in Open Banking and APIs: Where Does the U.S. Stand?”, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said, “To date, U.S. regulators have taken a ...

Lingering economic uncertainty and growing fraud rates in multiple markets are prompting consumers to sharpen their focus on privacy and security. Eighty-one percent of consumers in one recent study said that ...

Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe data privacy is a basic right, so merchants can’t afford to miss the mark on safeguarding consumers’ information. Michael Reidbord, president of retail technology organization ...

More consumers are turning to digital channels to make daily purchases as the pandemic continues. Emerging data privacy and open banking rules meant to regulate these digital transactions are thus ...

Consumers and businesses have been moving online in recent years, and regulators from the European Union to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have worked to keep up ...

Consumers around the globe have moved their purchasing online during the pandemic, and those in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are no exception. The region’s financial institutions (FIs) ...

 Banks, businesses and consumers fundamentally altered how they interacted with each other in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic — and regulators tasked with making sure their data and ...

In the great digital shift, the mobile device is the point of sale — especially in Asia’s fast-growing markets. In a Masterclass interview with PYMNTS, Tom Donlea, vice president and general ...

The migration to digital everything — aka the Digital Shift or Digital 3.0 if you prefer — is fulfilling the promise of eCommerce for the good players, as well as ...

Fraudsters took immediate advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, banking on overwhelmed servers, staff and consumer vulnerability to target everything from eCommerce purchases to government-supported relief programs. A recent study found ...

European Union regulators are eager to pop the top on new regulations to solve the region’s fraud woes. But many merchants still aren’t convinced, says Richard Ellison, founder of boutique ...

Most markets including the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States have seen a jump in online transaction volume as consumers react to the pandemic. One recent study found ...

Open banking is often associated with the European Union (EU) almost by default as the region pushes the envelope further on regulation than anywhere, partly to encourage — but also ...

Open banking has been picking up steam in Latin America for more than two years. Regulators in Mexico passed a law governing FinTechs in March 2018, just two months after ...

With nearly 50 percent of the Latin American population unbanked, there’s a growing appetite for mobile banking services. And the ongoing pandemic is only accelerating this trend, says Paula Arregui, ...

Open banking is appealing to financial institutions (FIs) and regulators in many markets, even as the pandemic sweeps across the world. The European Union’s financial authorities are monitoring how the pandemic ...

Driven by COVID-19 fears and stampeding online, consumers overwhelmed many businesses in 2020 that were unprepared for drastic, sudden eCommerce volume. That picture has brightened somewhat as summer begins, but ...

Keeping up with customers’ shifting behaviors and preferences amid changing regulations is a familiar challenge for today’s small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), but the pandemic’s impact on the scale of ...

The pandemic has accelerated consumer preferences for contactless payments, leaving merchants scrambling to process higher volumes while remaining compliant with rules for strong customer authentication (SCA). In the latest Merchants ...

The pandemic has drastically affected how consumers are shopping and paying for even routine purchases, and this in turn has altered how businesses are accepting their payments. The rise of online ...

Land rushes. Gold rushes. Now comes the rush to digitally onboard consumers who, driven by the fear of touching things that could be contaminated with COVID-19, are turning in droves ...

The EU enacted open banking rules in 2018, inspiring regulators worldwide to reconsider how they were transacting funds or transmitting data. The two years since have led governments around the world ...

The pandemic has thrown daily operations for merchants in the EU and the U.K. into flux. Retailers have had to swiftly adapt to markets where online transactions have ballooned exponentially. Even ...

Financial institutions (FIs) in the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom are still thinking positively about open banking even as the COVID-19 pandemic creates obstacles. FIs and their regulators are ...

Open banking was ready for its close-up when COVID-19 placed many such advanced initiatives on hold, in lieu of more practical and urgent considerations like applying for bailout money. International consumer ...

The COVID-19 pandemic may have stalled open banking developments, but 2020 is still shaping up to be a crucial year for such sharing and privacy regulations. This is especially true ...

Asia-Pacific bank regulators have been crafting their own open-banking initiatives even since Europe rolled out similar rules in 2018. Their goal — follow the European Union’s regulatory framework while meeting ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an impact on open banking developments worldwide as regulators, financial institutions (FIs) and businesses set their sights on helping their current customers rather than future ...

Long before anyone had ever heard of the coronavirus or social distancing, eCommerce was slowly and steadily making progress and eating into the physical retail share of the shopping landscape. As ...

Ekata Vice President and General Manager, APAC, Tom Donlea had recently moved to Singapore to open new offices when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It’s bad, he told PYMNTS, but not ...

Consumer data privacy laws were making compliance difficult before a pandemic brought the world to a halt. But COVID-19 also triggered emergency loopholes in data legislation that relax the rules ...

Devising open banking laws that adequately respond to shifting privacy needs and satisfy both businesses and consumers is difficult. U.S. legislators in several states are either drafting, voting on or ...

Merchants often find themselves caught in the middle as states from New York to California pass data security laws. In our latest Merchants Guide To Navigating Global Payment Regulations, PYMNTS ...

While the advancement of open banking regulations may be seeing a small skip due to the spread of the coronavirus, many countries saw business and typical banking operations halted right ...

What happened to the good old days of, like, two years ago? Back then, FinTechs asked for forgiveness instead of permission, rushing headlong into markets, disrupting them and operating in ...

Chinese banking and business practices’ potential impacts are favored topics for bankers and merchants: Changes in this market often have ripple effects on global finances. The country’s recent cybersecurity and ...

After four years of evolving Chinese online data and security regulations, foreign merchants doing business in China can find it challenging to stay compliant. In the latest Merchants Guide To ...

The continual spread of Open Banking means that regulators and merchants in various markets are becoming more aware of the critical importance of security as data speeds increase. One of ...

Looks like the digital advertising and marketing sectors are in for a reckoning. How that will affect merchants’ online promotional activity hangs in the balance. That’s the scoop as 2020 opens, ...

Banking is no longer just for traditional FIs, thanks to open banking’s spread. Digital banking development is poised to explode in Singapore, where legacy institutions have traditionally dominated. This prospective growth ...

Financial institutions (FIs) and merchants in the European Union (EU) have had some time to get used to both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the revised Payment Services ...

The rollout of PSD2’s Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) has been a bit bumpy, to say the least. A year ago (when the rollout was still officially on the calendar for ...

The European Union’s revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is tightening its grip on international finance as open banking initiatives continue to crop up in countries where the legislation has already been ...

FinTechs see PSD2 as an opportunity to get a leg up with legacy banks. That will be tough in Turkey, where banks have had more time to prepare for the ...

Banks and FinTechs in the European Union have settled into a period of harmony with the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). These financial institutions (FIs) have recognized how this regulation has ...

PYMNTS doesn’t just cover the news. We regularly feature podcast conversion with the leading experts, executives and entrepreneurs involved in transactions and commerce and all the related areas in between. ...

Information, knowledge and wisdom are three very different things. Sure, the lines separating those three areas can be both fine and blurry, but understanding how they differ can mean the difference ...

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) was designed to improve authentication standards across Europe, and enable money to move quickly, while reassuring all parties that funds were going to their intended recipients. ...

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is imperative to improving payment security — if EU regulators and financial institutions (FIs) could only agree on how to implement it. This lack of clarity ...

As Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) becomes fully implemented, the merchants, banks and third-party payment services within the European Union (EU) are still working out the particulars. The impact of the regulation ...

Payments is never boring these days, and that holds especially true as a new decade looms, new regulations are kicking in and merchants, card brands and payment services providers race ...

In today’s payments news, China has allowed PayPal to operate in the country with its purchase of a majority stake in GoPay. Also, Mastercard has outlined its intentions with blockchain following ...

The earlier, the better, right? That ancient wisdom would certainly seem to hold true in this quickly changing world of payments, a world being shaped not only by the rise of ...

SCA may have arrived on the payments scene, but questions remain regarding its exact authentication requirements. The overarching rule is simple enough: Consumers who make purchases online or use contactless ...

EU merchants, PSPs, and FIs watched as the strong customer authentication (SCA) deadline passed — then went right back to asking questions that regulators haven’t answered. The problem lies with ...

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is just weeks-old and already mired in controversy. Merchants in the European Union (EU) are still wondering exactly what changes the regulation will bring when it ...

Despite announcements last month that the deadline for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliance will be extended, the original proposed deadline approaches next week. The U.S. has not implemented regulations like GDPR ...

SCA in its simplest form requires that customers be identified through methods that fall into at least two of three categories: knowledge, possession or inherence. The first refers to KBA ...

The deadline to comply with SCA is Sept. 14, and European payment providers and merchants will have to either sink or swim. Unfortunately, the former is looking more likely for ...

In only two days, banks, payment providers and merchants in the European Union will finally hit the controversial deadline for compliance with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). As there are still ...

SCA may be facing a longer implementation period, but change is coming, of course. Ekata’s CEO Rob Eleveld tells Karen Webster that verification needs to combine aspects of the ...

You may have felt it earlier today – a sigh of relief originating from certain parts of the digital payments and commerce industry, a reaction to the news that the ...

SCA requirements take effect on Sept. 14, meaning banks, issuers and merchants have just over a month to become compliant. Noncompliance could have a serious impact on merchants’ conversion rates, ...

Twenty-five percent of EU merchants are unaware of PSD2’s SCA requirement — and even more are unprepared. And come Sept. 14, exemptions and extensions aside, that could cost them big. ...

As September approaches, the deadline for EU merchants to implement Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is looming. But according to the PSD2 Tracker, as many as 60 percent of these merchants ...

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) will officially roll out in one month. The regulation is aimed at protecting consumers and merchants alike from fraudsters and other online criminals wishing to access ...

There may be extensions to Strong Customer Authentication’s (SCA) rollout this fall — and there may not. And, there may be exemptions granted by the EBA — and there may ...

Stronger authentication is an obvious, albeit costly, defense against the growing number of online banking fraud attempts. European merchants will be forced to comply with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) come ...

As the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) brings more third parties into the European financial world, banks are seeing a shift in their relationships with customers. To withstand the shift, ...

Banks and merchants are racing to meet the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) deadline as September 2019 approaches. Banks are innovating their application programming interface (API)  platforms to allow for more third ...

With Open Banking expanding across the EU, legacy FIs are increasingly at risk of losing customers to FinTech firms that now have access to previously siloed customer data. In the ...

With the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliance deadline less than four months away, banks are still underprepared. While banks continue to open their application programming interfaces (APIs) to third-party providers and ...

Whitepages Pro is playing the long game when it comes to payments, with a series of structural changes separating consumer and B2B operations, and a new name to boot. CEO ...

Whitepages Pro has announced that it is spinning off its B2B business from the U.S.-focused direct-to-consumer operations of Whitepages.com, and is changing its name to Ekata. The company explained that the ...

To steal a line from Earth, Wind & Fire, it’s likely to be a September to remember. For merchants large and small, might this fall, and beyond, be chilly in ...

PSD2 looms, and merchants are unprepared for strong customer authentication mandates. As a result, European merchants face a cascade of transaction declines. Spencer McLain, VP, EMEA at Whitepages Pro, tells PYMNTS how ...

PSD2 and GDPR are changing all the rules when it comes to payments, presenting a unique opportunity for social media and technology companies to access customers’ information, data and money. ...

Most consumers have come to expect a one-stop, one-click shopping experience, and merchants want to deliver. eCommerce innovations have been focused on removing frictions for years, and many checkout processes ...

Across the European Union (EU), technology providers and social media platforms are increasingly playing a bigger role in the Open Banking ecosystem. At the same time, however, many players, like ...

Governments and companies looking to comply with PSD2 have had to meet several deadlines, some of which are still approaching. For FIs and merchants to fully integrate PSD2 regulations into ...

Since many European Union (EU) countries have now brought PSD2 and GDPR fully into their financial infrastructures, banks and merchants must prepare for the upcoming Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) rule ...

Across the pond, eCommerce is about to weather a sea change that begins in September. PSD2 is almost here, and with it Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), which governs online checkout ...

The implementation of PSD2 represents an opportunity for countries to overhaul their financial infrastructures, forcing them to upgrade older systems so businesses and FIs can remain compliant and move money ...

PSD2’s open banking initiatives often rely on APIs, which allow banks, merchants and third-party providers to access more data and process more transactions than they could in the siloed ...

With PSD2 becoming firmly planted in the European Union (EU), more markets are integrating the regulation into their financial systems, and prepping for changes in the ways they approach payments, ...

Ladies and gentlemen, it has finally arrived. From this day forward (March 14), businesses covered by the European Union’s (EU’s) Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) are supposed to have a testing regime ...

GDPR was signed into law in 2016, and since then it has been a point of debate for regulators, businesses, banks and industry professionals in the European Union and around ...

PSD2 launched in January 2018 and has been active in the European Union for a little over a year now, meaning that banks, merchants and customers are becoming used to ...

Merchants and customers are now transacting under PSD2 and GDPR in the European Union (EU) — regulations that allow a greater window into how customer data is being used. While ...

September approaches, of course (as it always does) – but this time, with a red-letter day on the 13th as PSD2 takes effect. As readers of these digital pages know, the ...

PSD2 requires every player in the EU that handles payments to make adjustments to ensure faster and more transparent transactions. The regulation opens customer data to third-party providers — as ...

The $318 billion European travel market is grappling with the changes PSD2 is bringing to how payments are made and processed within the EU, but its impact goes far beyond ...

With PSD2 in full swing in the European Union (EU), any merchant dealing with the payment data of EU citizens must upgrade their payment protocols to stay compliant. That said, the ...

Last year brought the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deadline, Europe’s attempt to boost online privacy and security for consumers — a law that just resulted in a $57 million fine ...

These days, consumers are almost always walking around with at least one, if not more, connected device. Whether they’re smartphones, tablets, wearables or something else, these devices are constantly collecting ...

September 2019 might seem like an eternity away, but for many retailers from the U.K. and around Europe, it’s just around the corner. That’s because, come Sept. 14, PSD2 goes ...

From using instant messaging to getting directions and shopping online, consumers are constantly generating a trail of data about their preferences and whereabouts. However, while all that happens in the background, ...

Computing power is dirt cheap, thanks to cloud infrastructure. Jurisdiction is always a few steps behind, though — who is really going to bust down the door at a server ...