Dispatch from the Smart Card Alliance Payments Conference

by George Peabody | Feb 20, 2014

For those companies and individuals most committed to building the EMV and NFC ecosystems, the place to be February 3rd through 7th was Salt Lake City where the Smart Card Alliance hosted both an EMV Migration Forum meeting and its annual Payments Summit.  Over 525...

How many payments professionals does it take to hire a bike? Three! (A story of Chip & PIN)

by Erin McCune | Jun 12, 2013

Bicycles are my preferred form of transportation so I was eager to explore London using the Barclay’s-sponsored bike share program. Unfortunately, you need a Chip & PIN card to rent a bike using the automated stands and all I have are U.S. issued mag stripe cards....

ATM Cash-outs, Security, and the Coming Authentication Battles

by George Peabody | May 10, 2013

The arrest of eight in New York who participated in a global $45 million ATM cash-out attack revealed, once again, some hard truths about the cyber security posture of financial systems and the enterprises that operate essential payment infrastructure. First, the...

EMV, Authentication and Bank Disintermediation in the U.S. Market: What’s a Bank To Do?

by George Peabody | Apr 26, 2013

Merchants and terminals were a key focus at two major payments conferences this week:  NACHA and CARTES.  The issue of EMV in the U.S. and the high cost for merchants to replace their terminals was raised repeatedly. Estimates for the cost of replacement in the U.S....

The Case for EMV Chip Cards in the US?

by scott | Feb 8, 2011

In one of my prior lives, I made the phone call that triggered what eventually became the industry standard for chip card deployment now known as EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa). That call was made almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was at Visa where we were spending a...