PaymentsJournal

The number of payment methods keeps expanding, driving a higher volume of payments and further complicating data management processes for businesses. The strength of any organization lies in its ability to efficiently manage data, and this is where automation would make the most significant impact. An AutoRek report, “Payments Industry Outlook 2023,” highlights the findings of an organizational su...

ISO 20022 , a new global standard for electronic messaging between financial institutions, was initially created to give the financial industry a common platform for sending and receiving data about payments. However, financial institutions should not look at ISO 20022 as merely a compliance burden to be met, but an opportunity to serve clients better and gain a competitive edge. The amount of dat...

A Look into E-Commerce for 2023 E-commerce merchants have had to deal with an onslaught of change recently — an acceleration of online shopping, disruptions due to COVID-19, inflation, and a possible recession — which has significantly impacted how online businesses should be operating to remain viable now. The aforementioned events have given way to a few trends that online sellers must be ready...

ISO 20022 may be delayed in its global rollout, but that doesn’t mean banks can afford to put off or ignore upgrading their payments systems to meet this new messaging standard. Broadly speaking, ISO 20022 is a global standard for electronic messaging between financial institutions and was initially created to give the financial industry a common platform for sending and receiving data about payme...

The year 2023 is poised to see significant evolutions within the payments landscape. From the rapid rise of contactless payments in the past couple of years to the widespread adoption of embedded payments, consumers and merchants can agree that they want their payments to be seamless, frictionless, and fast. The Current Payments Landscape Consumers have always taken part in payments in some shape,...

In a payments world that often is often focused on the new thing, reliable ACH payments—the province of the National Automated Clearing House Association (Nacha)—keep steadily growing, with billions of payments processed annually to the tune of trillions of dollars. That doesn’t mean, however, that nothing is new in the ACH lane. On a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Michael Herd , the Senior Vice...

In today’s digital age—when convenience, ease, and personalization are highly valued—consumers expect a variety of payment options, whether it’s buy-now, pay-later installment plans, cryptocurrency, or contactless payments. And they want those options not just in e-commerce but also within physical stores. As a result, many companies are adopting an omnichannel payments strategy that gives c...

Ransomware attacks are hitting financial institutions big and small, and show no signs of abating. When companies suffer ransomware attacks, they typically turn to their legal counsel or insurer for advice about how to choose a good ransomware negotiator. When small business, in particular, is hit, they often turn to their primary financial institution for ransomware-response guidance. That’s beca...

With cybercrimes reaching unprecedented levels and impacting businesses in every industry, consumers are naturally wary of providing personal information online. Financial institutions continually rank among the most trusted organizations with which consumers do business, but FIs can quickly lose their coveted ground if their customers or members lose cyber-trust due to lack of privacy protections...

Direct Deposit has been a part of our banking system for more than two decades, and employers commonly use it to issue employees their wages directly into their bank accounts. Today, Direct Deposits can be used to pay taxes, bills, and other charges. “Direct Deposit has been around for quite some time and it’s very well received throughout the United States,” said Debbie Barr, Senior Director of A...

Credit card tumbling (CCT) is a subset of credit card fraud in which a hacker has some, but not all, of a customer’s information and attempts to guess the rest. The word tumbling is a reference to the tumblers, or knobs, on an old-fashioned safe, which a robber would open by listening carefully to the moving tumblers to detect a click, an indication that a code number had been reached. Today’s hac...

It’s been about five years since real-time payments (RTP) became a reality in the U.S., and their popularity and adoption continue to skyrocket. According to a survey U.S. Bank  conducted among 1,000 financial executives across various industries in May and June of 2022, 56% said they will adopt real-time payments by 2024. Furthermore, 41% of companies described as “RTP leaders” saw an increa...

Faster payments and the user experience are the differentiators that will enable banks and credit unions to remain relevant and competitive. We’ve seen this gradual shift during the past decade as modern payments have undergone a significant transformation based on consumer expectations. And in the past few years, in particular, the shift has accelerated as the pandemic changed the way many are pa...

The year 2022 was one of global financial uncertainty and risk, and 2023 may bring more of the same. For executives in payments risk management, planning for the year ahead should involve taking this geopolitical and financial uncertainty into account and planning accordingly. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Sudhir Jha , senior vice president and head of Brighterion, a Mastercard company, and...

Cryptocurrencies have moved from a speculative asset to a practical one. One area in which crypto can serve and improve is the current business-to-business (B2B) payments space. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Daniel Artin, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Boost, and Elly Aiala , Chief Compliance Officer at Boost, joined Steve Murphy, Director of Commercial and Enterprise Payments...

To sustain their operations, businesses have more than their fair share of challenges to confront. With a recession imminent, climbing interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and a turbulent global climate, business executives have many AR issues to address, along with just keeping enough cash on hand. To get an in-depth look at what executives are struggling with, Versapay surveyed 1,000 C-leve...

Most of the narrative within the fintech and crypto space revolves around the decline of cash. But is cash really declining? Countries that have attempted to go cashless, such as Sweden, have backtracked these efforts to ensure that consumers still have access to cash when the occasion calls for it. “Cash is on the increase,” said Joe Myers, Executive Vice President of Global Banking at Diebold Ni...

For financial institutions, focusing on digital transformation has become extremely important. The shift to digitization accelerated during the pandemic when many people weren’t stepping foot into physical bank locations, keeping most of their interactions with banks virtual. PaymentsJournal recently sat with Whitney Stewart Russell , President of Digital Solutions at Fiserv, and Steve Murphy , Di...

As the holiday season approaches, merchants should be aware that as overall sales increase, so will fraud. In fact, the holiday season is an opportune time for fraudsters to strike. And merchants need to plan accordingly so that they are not overwhelmed. Fortunately, certain strategies and tools can help merchants adjust their fraud procedures. They can adjust in ways that avoid the need to hire a...

Fraud continues to pound embattled financial institutions, which are aiming to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated attacks. More organizations are realizing that fraud prevention tools and strategies must remain top of mind, which means investing heavily on the most effective tools on the market today. Great strides have been made thanks to powerful tools such as analytics, artificial intelli...

In the event of a possible recession, it’s important for acquirers to make their businesses as efficient as possible. Increasing sales is one important part of that, but so is reducing transaction fraud. Yet, being overzealous with transaction fraud detection has its risks. If false declines on transactions are too high, customers become frustrated and stop shopping with certain merchants. This ca...

The regulatory compliance world can be very complex, and with the rapid expansion of digital payments, it’s increasingly difficult to identify and stop fraudulent transactions from occurring. Technological solutions continue to evolve at an equally breakneck speed. But they have failed to keep up with the rapid-fire payments made by bad actors. This forces compliance analysts to manage the barrage...

Within the banking industry, it’s important to secure hardware as soon as you need it. This will ensure your operations continue to run at peak performance and to meet compliance requirements. Unfortunately, the procurement process has become slow and cumbersome for many financial institutions. This is due to supply chain snags, disparate systems and lack of resources to manage this necessary func...

For most financial institutions, modernization and digital transformation are top priorities, yet many still struggle in these efforts. Many are unsure where to start and also wary of the potential risks with modernizing legacy systems. Therefore, a large number of banks and credit unions are still in the beginning or exploratory phase of digital transformation. Yet these projects are more importa...

Data is the driving force behind key strategic decisions for any business. But, businesses have a tough time turning the wealth of data and insights into something actionable and tangible. How can cloud data help? Through their partnership, Mastercard and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are equipping organizations with the most up-to-date location and spending insights. This enables those organizations...