December 18th, 2015 by Elma Jane
A leading provider of mobile point of sale and mobile payment technology, published today the EMV Migration Tracker.
Many merchants have deployed EMV capable terminals while cardholders have received cards with EMV chips, but not much data has been published about the real world use of EMV chip card technology in the U.S. Most published statistics rely on surveys or forecasts rather than real transactional data.
The EMV Migration Tracker shows new data and insights since the October 1 liability shift, including:
- Over 50% of all cards in use now have EMV chips on them. From October to November, the percent grew 5% as banks and card issuers accelerated their rollout of new chip cards.
- Over 83% of American Express cards have EMV chips, while Discover lags at 40%
- Over 63% of the cards used in Hawaii have EMV chips, but Mississippi sees just 11% penetration of chip cards.
While EMV chip card technology has been implemented in Europe years ago, the rollout of EMV in the U.S is just beginning. The rollout came earlier this year with the October 1 liability shift in card present transaction, meaning that merchants who have not upgraded their POS system can become liable for counterfeit card fraud losses that occur at their stores. This is an early step in an ongoing process that the Payments Security Task Force predicts will lead to 98 percent of U.S. credit and debit cards containing EMV chips by the end of 2017.
http://www.finextra.com/news/announcement.aspx?pressreleaseid=62506
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: American Express, banks, card issuers, card present, card technology, cardholders, chip cards, credit, data, debit, Discover, EMV, EMV chips, merchants, mobile payment, mobile point of sale, payment technology, point of sale, POS, provider
December 10th, 2015 by Elma Jane
WALMART LAUNCHES QR CODE MOBILE PAYMENTS SERVICE
Customers at US retail giant Walmart will soon be able to pay for purchases by scanning a QR code at the point of sale using Walmart Pay. Walmart Pay will be integrated into the Walmart app, the retailer’s own mobile payment service introduced in selected stores this month, with a nationwide launch expected in the first half of next year.
With this launch, Walmart becomes the only retailer to offer its own payment solution that works with any iOS or Android device, at any checkout lane, and with any major credit, debit, prepaid or Walmart gift card all through the Walmart mobile app.
Walmart Pay will allow for the integration of other mobile wallets in the future.
http://www.nfcworld.com/2015/12/10/340527/walmart-launches-qr-code-mobile-payments-service-in-the-us/
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale Tagged with: credit, debit, gift Card, mobile payment, mobile payment service, mobile wallets, payment service, payment solution, point of sale, prepaid
November 20th, 2015 by Elma Jane
LG is planning to launch its mobile payment service by December in a bid to compete in the global mobile payment market that is already dominated by tech majors such Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. The service solution dubbed as LG Pay. Some observers have said it will likely follow Samsung to the US, as well since it has trademarked the product name both at its homeland, South Korea and United States. The company broke the news in its Facebook page.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments Tagged with: Android Pay, Apple Pay, global mobile payment, mobile payment, Samsung Pay
November 2nd, 2015 by Elma Jane
Apple’s mobile payment and digital wallet service will become available for American Express Card Members in Canada and Australia this year, with Spain, Singapore and Hong Kong to follow suit next year.
Card Members in these markets will be able to seamlessly add their small business, eligible consumer and corporate American Express Cards and pay on the go with their iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch devices in stores where American Express and contactless payments are accepted. They will also be able to pay using their iPad or iPhone in participating merchant apps.
Card Members paying with Apple Pay will continue to take advantage of the protection and customer service that American Express is known for. They will also receive real-time notifications and details for their purchases, as well as enjoy seamless connection to the Amex Mobile app for better account monitoring, servicing and access to rewards and offers.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: Card Members, contactless payments, Digital Wallet, merchant, mobile payment
October 23rd, 2015 by Elma Jane
Loyalty programs continue to change and evolve, with the new and more powerful technology available today, rewarding customers is becoming easier and more targeted.
If you’re starting a new loyalty program or looking to maximize an existing one check this out.
Communication Is Key
Consumer-facing technology is playing a big role in today’s loyalty and rewards programs. Communication with customers is one of the most important marketing tools in loyalty, including digital coupons, direct communication and mobile payment via smartphones and apps.
Keep It Simple
The message to the customer should be simple, as loyalty and rewards programs may be complex and detailed on the backend. Employees should be able to easily communicate how the program works and it should be easy for consumers to understand.
Make It Mobile
Mobile apps, can connect with loyal customers on the go, and utilize messaging and notifications to communicate relevant promotions. The next wave of mobile will be mobile wallet integration, utilizing the big platforms like Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Personalize Offers
Loyalty and rewards programs are becoming more personal. With data and analytics can target promotions and offers based on customer behavior.
Top-Down Approach
When launching or building a loyalty or rewards program, companies need to get everyone on board, explain the goals of the program and what it will look like for customers. Everyone should understand the program and how it works.
For more information about Loyalty Rewards Program and Gift Card Processing you can give us a call now at 888-996-2273 or go to https://www.nationaltransaction.com/merchant-services/gift-card-loyalty-rewards-processing.html
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing Tagged with: Apple Pay, data, Google Pay, Loyalty Rewards Programs, mobile payment, mobile wallet
October 19th, 2015 by Elma Jane
If you’re a merchant accepting credit cards, you’re probably aware that things are changing. As of October 1st, 2015, merchants are now liable for any fraudulent activity that occurs as a result of non-EMV-compliant. For those Merchants who haven’t yet updated their POS terminal, you need to talk with your processor to get a new equipment.
Things Merchant should know to be EMV ready:
What is EMV Chip Cards? Chip Cards are standard bank cards that are embedded with a micro-computer chip. Some may require a PIN instead of a signature to complete the transaction process. The new cards will still have magnetic stripes, at least for the time being, so you technically can continue to process payments with the same old equipment you’ve been using for years. But by refusing to upgrade your hardware, you are taking on responsibility for any fraud that might have otherwise been prevented with the new technology.
How does EMV Chip Cards Work? Instead of swiping your card, you are going to do what is called card dipping, which means inserting your card into a terminal slot and waiting for it to process.
When a Chip Card or EMV Card is dipped, data flows between the card chip and the issuing financial institution to verify the card’s legitimacy and create the unique transaction data.
This process isn’t as quick as a magnetic-stripe swipe. It will take a little longer for that transmission of data.
What Must a Merchant Do? For merchants and financial institutions, the switch to EMV chip cards means adding new in-store technology and internal processing systems, and complying with new liability rules. Merchants who have not yet purchased new POS Terminal may be held liable for fraud as of October 1st, 2015. Implementing EMV technology isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. If you are one of those in the retail business or retailers using mobile payment devices who missed the Oct. 1st deadline, you are already at risk. Upgrading should be a top priority.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Point of Sale Tagged with: bank cards, chip cards, credit cards, data, EMV, financial institutions, magnetic stripes, merchant, mobile payment, PIN, POS terminal, processor, retail business, terminal slot
September 11th, 2015 by Elma Jane
National Transaction Terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability
To accept Apple Pay transactions at your business, you will need to adopt point-of-sale devices with NFC/contactless readers.
National Transaction offer a range of options to suite your specific needs:
Tablet solutions: Talech with iCMP device and NCR Silver.
Short-range wireless terminals for pay at the table: Bring the point-of-sale to your customers. Ideal for table-service restaurants, curbside pick-up, salons and more.
These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. The short range terminals use secure, encrypted Bluetooth technology, allowing only the base and terminal to talk to each other, while also monitoring channels to prevent interference from other devices.
The Bluetooth terminals we offer are: VeriFone VX680B and Ingenico iWL220B. (Both Bluetooth Wireless)
Long-range wireless (cellular/mobile) terminals: Have a long-life battery and compact design, which allows you to process transactions anywhere your customers are ideal for deliveries, kiosks and more.
These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. Phone lines and internet connections are not required to take advantage of our mobile payment solutions.
The GPRS wireless terminals we offer are: VeriFone VX680G and Ingenico iWL250G. (Both GPRS Wireless)
Countertop terminals:
Ingenico iCT250 – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter. The terminal boasts a color display for improved readability and ease of use.
Verifone VX520 – has a built-in secure software authentication process which prevents unauthorized software applications from being downloaded.
Ingenico iCT220 with iPP320 external PIN pad – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter, along with a black and white screen for crisp visual clarity. Combine with an iPP320 for a consumer- facing solution to support contactless payments. (Note: the iCT220 device only supports contactless transactions when connected to this external PIN pad).
Whether you need a stand-alone POS terminal, want to take advantage of your existing tablet or PC, or require a wireless or mobile solution, National Transaction Corp., offers numerous user-friendly options. No matter how your customer wants to pay, NTC will help you enable quick and easy transactions from Traditional credit and debit cards, gift cards, smart cards (or EMV), mobile or digital wallets like Apple Pay and eCommerce or MOTO transactions.
Start growing your business quickly by accepting all kinds of credit card payments and debit cards. Choose a state-of-the-art solution so you can accept payment in store or on your mobile device. With transparent pricing, live customer support, no cancellation fees and a secure platform, you’ll be confident you made the right partner for your business with National Transaction Corp.
Learn how easy it can be to accept any contactless or Apple Pay transactions.
Click here for more information about Apple Pay.
For Merchant Account Setup give us a call at 888-996-2273 or visit our website www.nationaltransaction.com
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mail Order Telephone Order, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: Apple Pay transactions, contactless readers, Countertop terminals, credit card, debit cards, Digital wallets, ecommerce, Gift Cards, mobile payment, moto, Near Field Communication, nfc, PIN pad, point of sale, POS terminal, smart cards, wireless terminals
September 17th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Host Card Emulation (HCE) offers virtual payment card issuers the promise of removing dependencies on secure element issuers such as mobile network operators (MNOs). HCE allows issuers to run the payment application in the operating system (OS) environment of the smart phone, so the issuing bank does not depend on a secure element issuer. This means lower barriers to entry and potentially a boost to the NFC ecosystem in general. The issuer will have to deal with the absence of a hardware secure element, since the OS environment itself cannot offer equivalent security. The issuer must mitigate risk using software based techniques, to reduce the risk of an attack. Considering that the risk is based on probability of an attack times the impact of an attack, mitigation measures will generally be geared towards minimizing either one of those.
To reduce the probability of an attack, various software based methods are available. The most obvious one in this category is to move part of the hardware secure element’s functionality from the device to the cloud (thus creating a cloud based secure element). This effectively means that valuable assets are not stored in the easily accessible device, but in the cloud. Secondly, user and hardware verification methods can be implemented. The mobile application itself can be secured with software based technologies.
Should an attack occur, several approaches exist for mitigating the Impact of such an attack. On an application level, it is straightforward to impose transaction constraints (allowing low value and/or a limited number of transactions per timeframe, geographical limitations). But the most characteristic risk mitigation method associated with HCE is to devaluate the assets that are contained by the mobile app, that is to tokenize such assets. Tokenization is based on replacing valuable assets with something that has no value to an attacker, and for which the relation to the valuable asset is established only in the cloud. Since the token itself has no value to the attacker it may be stored in the mobile app. The principle of tokenization is leveraged in the cloud based payments specifications which are (or will soon be) issued by the different card schemes such as Visa and MasterCard.
HCE gives the issuer complete autonomy in defining and implementing the payment application and required risk mitigations (of course within the boundaries set by the schemes). However, the hardware based security approach allowed for a strict separation between the issuance of the mobile payment application on one hand and the transactions performed with that application on the other hand. For the technology and operations related to the issuance, a bank had the option of outsourcing it to a third party (a Trusted Service Manager). From the payment transaction processing perspective, there would be negligible impact and it would practically be business as usual for the bank.
This is quite different for HCE-based approaches. As a consequence of tokenization, the issuance and transaction domains become entangled. The platform involved in generating the tokens, which constitute payment credentials and are therefore related to the issuance domain, is also involved in the transaction authorization.
HCE is offering autonomy to the banks because it brings independence of secure element issuers. But this comes at a cost, namely the full insourcing of all related technologies and systems. Outsourcing becomes less of an option, largely due to the entanglement of the issuance and transaction validation processes, as a result of tokenization.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Near Field Communication, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: (MNOs), (OS), assets, bank, card, card issuers, cloud, cloud based payments, cloud based secure element, cloud-based, hardware secure element, Host Card Emulation (HCE), issuing bank, MasterCard, mobile, mobile app, mobile application, mobile network operators, mobile payment, mobile payment application, nfc, operating system, payment application, payment transaction, payments, platform, risk, secure element, smart phone, software, software based technologies, token, tokenization, transaction, virtual payment, visa
September 2nd, 2014 by Elma Jane
While Apple doesn’t talk about future products,latest report that the next iPhone would include mobile-payment capabilities powered by a short-distance wireless technology called near-field communication or NFC. Apple is hosting an event on September 9th, that’s widely expected to be the debut of the next iPhone or iPhones. Mobile payments, or the notion that you can pay for goods and services at the checkout with your smartphone, may finally break into the mainstream if Apple and the iPhone 6 get involved.
Apple’s embrace of mobile payments would represent a watershed moment for how people pay at drugstores, supermarkets or for cabs. The technology and capability to pay with a tap of your mobile device has been around for years, you can tap an NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S5 or NFC-enabled credit card at point-of-sale terminals found at many Walgreen drugstores, but awareness and usage remain low. Apple has again the opportunity to transform, disrupt and reshape an entire business sector. It is hard to overestimate what impact Apple could have if it really wants to play in the payments market.
Apple won’t be the first to enter the mobile-payments arena. Google introduced its Google Wallet service in May 2011. The wireless carriers formed their joint venture with the intent to create a platform for mobile payments. Apple tends to stay away from new technologies until it has had a chance to smooth out the kinks. It was two years behind some smartphones in offering an iPhone that could tap into the faster LTE wireless network. NFC was rumored to be included in at least the last two iPhones and could finally make its appearance in the iPhone 6. The technology will be the linchpin to enabling transactions at the checkout.
Struggles
The notion of turning smartphones into true digital wallets including the ability to pay at the register, has been hyped up for years. But so far, it’s been more promise than results. There have been many technical hurdles to making mobile devices an alternative to cash, checks, and credit cards. NFC technology has to be included in both the smartphone and the point-of-sale terminal to work, and it’s been a slow process getting NFC chips into more equipment. NFC has largely been relegated to a feature found on higher-end smartphones such as the Galaxy S5 or the Nexus 5. There’s also confusion on both sides, the merchant and the customer, on how the tech works and why tapping your smartphone on a checkout machine is any faster, better or easier than swiping a card. There’s a chicken-and-egg problem between lack of user adoption and lack of retailer adoption. It’s one reason why even powerhouses such as Google have struggled. Despite a splashy launch of its digital wallet and payment service more than three years ago, Google hasn’t won mainstream acceptance or even awareness for its mobile wallet. Google hasn’t said how many people are using Google Wallet, but a look at its page on the Google Play store lists more than 47,000 reviews giving it an average of a four-star rating.
The Puzzle
Apple has quietly built the foundation to its mobile-payment service in Passbook, an app introduced two years ago in its iOS software and released as a feature with the iPhone 4S. Passbook has so far served as a repository for airline tickets, membership cards, and credit card statements. While it started out with just a handful of compatible apps, Passbook works with apps from Delta, Starbucks, Fandango, The Home Depot, and more. But it could potentially be more powerful. Apple’s already made great inroads with Passbook, it could totally crack open the mobile payments space in the US. Apple could make up a fifth of the share of the mobile-payment transactions in a short few months after the launch. The company also has the credit or debit card information for virtually all of its customers thanks to its iTunes service, so it doesn’t have to go the extra step of asking people to sign up for a new service. That takes away one of the biggest hurdles to adoption. The last piece of the mobile-payments puzzle with the iPhone is the fingerprint recognition sensor Apple added into last year’s iPhone 5S. That sensor will almost certainly make its way to the upcoming iPhone 6. The fingerprint sensor, which Apple obtained through its acquisition of Authentic in 2012, could serve as a quick and secure way of verifying purchases, not just through online purchases, but large transactions made at big-box retailers such as Best Buy. Today, you can use the fingerprint sensor to quickly buy content from Apple’s iTunes, App and iBooks stores.
The bigger win for Apple is the services and features it could add on to a simple transaction, if it’s successful in raising the awareness of a form of payment that has been quietly lingering for years. Google had previously seen mobile payments as the optimal location for targeted advertisements and offers. It’s those services and features that ultimately matter in the end, replacing a simple credit card swipe isn’t that big of a deal.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: app, Apple, card, card swipe, cash, checkout machine, checks, chips, credit, credit card swipe, credit-card, customer, debit card, Digital wallets, fingerprint recognition, fingerprint sensor, Galaxy S5, Google Wallet, iOS, Iphone, market, merchant, mobile, mobile device, mobile payment, mobile wallet, Near Field Communication, network, Nexus 5, nfc, payment, payment service, platform, point of sale, products, sensor, services, smartphone, software, statements, swiping card, terminals, transactions, wireless technology
August 8th, 2014 by Elma Jane
MasterCard’s latest Card Personalization Validation module in the Collis EMV Personalization Validation Tool qualified by MasterCard, including the U.S. Common Debit AID. The tool will be used to support EMV card issuers in the U.S., and specifically checks if MasterCard cards are correctly personalized according to the latest MasterCard specifications. It also includes specific personalization profiles to certify compliance with the Durbin Legislation. The Collis EMV Personalization Validation Tool is the most thorough and comprehensive test tool for issuers, card personalization bureaus and card manufacturers that want to validate the personalization of their contact/contactless payment cards and mobile payment applications. With the tool, issuers easily check the correctness of the personalization of any EMV card application according to the latest test specifications of the seven major worldwide payment schemes. He added that the Collis EMV Personalization Validation Tool fits also seamlessly to prepare for the MasterCard CPV Formal Approve Service that UL can deliver.
Posted in Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: card, contactless payment, Debit AID, EMV, EMV card, MasterCard, mobile payment, payment schemes
