PaymentsJournal

Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X prefer frictionless experiences in all areas of their lives and have embraced contactless payments. Baby Boomers also prefer this payment method in many circumstances, but are often bamboozled by a lack of standardization in contactless payment technology. Unlike credit card terminals, contactless payment experiences are not as standardized, which creates friction and...

Real-time payments adoption has become widespread, and as a result, financial services companies need to be better equipped to overcome any operational challenges that may come up. During a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Reed Luhtanen , Executive Director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, Tony Cook , EVP of Payment Operations & Real-Time Payments at FirstBank, and Cheryl Fitzgarrald , Prog...

Economic conditions have a way of shaking up the marketplace and the ability of e-commerce to produce goods and services for end customers. Factors such as inflation, interest rates, and layoffs are powerful economic forces to be reckoned with. In a recent discussion, Sunny Thakkar , Director, Head of Merchant Fraud Solutions at Worldpay from FIS, and Daniel Keyes , Senior Analyst for Merchant Ser...

Help is on the way for merchants that are swamped with friendly-fraud chargebacks. Friendly fraud occurs when a customer makes a legitimate purchase, then requests a refund, often because the consumer has forgotten the transaction took place. Visa is introducing its Compelling Evidence 3.0 rule set, which allows merchants to submit historical purchase evidence to prove a legitimate cardholder was...

With exceptional customer experiences they have derived from giants such as Apple and Amazon, consumers expect choice, speed, and control in the methods they use to pay. And they’re looking for these very features from their financial institutions. FIs, steeped in legacy systems, are simply not geared up to offer these features, which should be table stakes. Not offering these features could mean...

Digital payments continue to evolve, and consumers are here for it. If businesses or financial institutions are not equipped to deliver embedded payments, today’s customers will simply seek the ease and convenience of a seamless payment experience elsewhere . A recent discussion between Hal Ramakers, SVP of Global Solutions at Brightwell, and Brian Riley , Director of Credit and Co-Director of Pay...

If you are looking more carefully at cash flow after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, you are not alone. One place to look is automating accounts receivable (AR). With the increasing digitization of all aspects of finance, AR sticks out for its antiquated processes. Most businesses still do AR manually, and changing from that process has not been top of mind. But it should be. Automating AR ha...

Real-time payments (RTP) continue to become more of a part of everyday life for consumers. While RTP systems are more mature in other parts of the world, the U.S. is slowly catching up. The Clearinghouse launched its RTP Network in 2017, the first payments rail in the U.S. designed to handle real-time transfer of settlement and funds. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to launch its FedNow RTP servi...

With FedNow launching this July, successful implementation of real-time payments systems will require banks to test both the technical and operational side of their operations. In a previous discussion with PaymentsJournal, Form3 touched on the importance of banks having not only the technical aspects in place, but also transaction reporting and operational considerations. Testing early is key to...

Checks have seen a steady decline in use — with a 2021 Federal Reserve survey finding a decrease of 7%-8% in check volume annually — but the same clearing processes must still be performed by financial institutions. This reduced volume is prompting financial institutions to consider ways to minimize costs and increase efficiencies in the item clearing and settlement process. The Current State of I...

Artificial intelligence (AI) and biometrics are revolutionizing regulatory compliance in fintechs and banks by providing more accurate and efficient methods of identifying and preventing fraudulent activity, as well as streamlining compliance processes. Traditionally, compliance has been a tedious and time-consuming process, requiring manual checks and reviews of transactions and documents. But wi...

With the upcoming launch of the FedNow Service, real-time payments continue to be a topic of discussion as demand grows among customers and businesses. More financial institutions are seeing the importance of enabling a range of real-time use cases to remain competitive and enhance the customer experience.   Where Real-Time Payments Stand in Availability  Less than 10 years ago...

In April 2023, Visa is set to update its requirements around reporting fraud, with the goal of reducing friendly fraud chargebacks and helping merchants retain more of their revenue. These new requirements, known as Compelling Evidence (CE) 3.0, let merchants bring evidence that contradicts cardholder fraud claims before chargebacks are filed. By sending in compelling evidence via Visa’s Order Ins...

Many factors drive the need for more accurate, timely, and proactive liquidity management, including increased regulation and as the continued shift to faster payments. During a recent PaymentsJournal webinar, Jo Wright , Director of Solution Enablement at Fiserv, and Steve Murphy , Director of Commercial Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, spoke about the key ways banks can better manage...

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...