Past Articles

Report Urges New Fraud Management Solutions as Global Card Fraud Patterns Shift

Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) and CMSPI launch retail payments fraud investigation, with support from Fiserv.

Mixed reviews for Visa's new chargeback process

It might be too early to determine the full impact of the new Visa Claims Resolution process designed to streamline and limit chargebacks, but 52 percent of respondents surveyed claimed no decrease in chargebacks since VCR, and most of the 33 percent reporting a decline cited a decrease of less than 5 percent.

A Guide to Visa and Mastercard's New Mandate for Stored Payment Credentials

How Visa and Mastercard’s new mandates for Stored-Credential transactions effect ecommerce merchants and what you need to do to ensure compliance. These days, more ecommerce businesses are storing their customers' credit card numbers and other payment credentials to make it easier to process automated or recurring charges for things like subscriptions and one-click shopping. Visa and Mastercard are introducing new guidelines this year for how merchants should handle stored payment credentials.

PSD2 – The Changes and Opportunities Explained

PSD2 is set to shake up the payment sector, so how will that affect you as a merchant or marketplace? Worldpay and its PSD2 expert, Charles Damen, are here to guide you through the changes and opportunities PSD2 is set to bring.

MAG CEO John Drechny: The Federal Reserve must develop a real-time payments rail

Customer experience throughout one’s shopping experience is a priority for merchants. Competition, transparency, choice, security, safety, and balanced liability all play an important role in merchants’ payments considerations as they seek to make the customer’s payment experience fast and easy.

The road to PSD2 – Reducing Fraud and Protecting the Customer Experience

As the shopping experience increasingly shifts online, organizations across the payment space are under greater pressure than ever to reduce fraud while making sure transactions remain as easy as possible. A new European Union initiative – the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) – is designed specifically for this purpose and lays out a framework so that companies can both protect customers, whilst also providing the best possible shopping experience.

A Paradigm Shift in Payments – A Future the Industry Should Demand for Digital

As consumers continue to leverage digital channels more often for transacting, there has been a sense of optimism that the paradigm in payments could shift to one that fosters increased competition and innovation coming from new technology players offering creative consumer experiences that enhance overall retail commerce. In recent weeks, it has become unclear if that paradigm shift will be challenged in light of a new remote commerce framework being introduced by the global payment networks.

Bigger-Ticket Items Require Bigger Capabilities

Customers are more discerning when deciding where to buy big-ticket items, so retailers with strategies in place to make the purchasing process seamless and effectively inform and engage shoppers across channels have an advantage. This includes consumer financing options for customers across the credit spectrum and new technology that enhances the customer experience and integrates a flexible credit program.

It's a Small, Small World

As business continues to expand around the globe, I often reflect back on a single Disney song from 1962 that allowed us to peer into the future. Shortly after the Cuban missile crisis, The Sherman Brothers wrote the song “It’s a Small World (After All).”

GDPR - What Merchants Need to Know

By now most organizations have heard of the European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in May 2018. The new legislation establishes guidelines on how companies should handle customer privacy, store data securely, and respond to security breaches. Businesses across the EU (or who have dealings with EU companies) have been working hard to change their practices and get GDPR compliant. Merchants, who frequently come into contact with sensitive customer information like payment details, have to be especially prepared as GDPR has the potential to affect many areas of their businesses.

Innovate Now: Enabling Secure PIN Debit for eCommerce via Credit Push (MAG Quarterly- Volume Six, Issue One)

March 8, 2018

Why is it So Complex to Reconcile Interchange Fees? Can Analytics help?

How does your company stack up against best-practices and costs of card based sales? Payments analytics provides clarity, understanding, and helps reduce fees more easily and faster. Like anything, if you can’t measure it, you cannot improve it.

What Is Common Debit AID and Why Does It Matter?

The U.S. may have the most complex point of sale (POS) debit payment system in the world, and the migration to EMV has made it more confusing for many merchants. Common AID was created to simplify this for merchants, but it’s important that they fully understand what it means for their business and their customers.

Debit Routing Choice: A Critical Piece of Pro-Competitive Debit Reforms

February 28, 2017

European Competition Commission Gets it Right with Payments Legislation?

September 3, 2015

What’s Up in Washington? (MAG Quarterly- Volume Five, Issue Three)

September 7, 2017

What’s Up in Washington

Shopping has changed forever. Here’s why

Corporate treasury and payments teams are building agile and modern payments infrastructure to help grow their businesses and remain competitive. In the process, the future of shopping—and the way we think about payments—are becoming real time, contextual, data-driven, global and experiential.

A Mobile Wallet Day in the Life

Imagine this: On a sunny spring day, Jen, a 36 year-old wife and mother, puts her kids on the bus for school and leaves her suburban home for yet another busy day. Her first stop is the gas station to fill-up her SUV. She used to go wherever was convenient during her day, but now she makes a point to fill-up at stations in one specific chain because their new smartphone app gives her $.10 off per gallon when she uses the app to operate the pump and pay using her stored checking account information.

Evolution in Payments: EMV is Not the Only Three Letter Word in This Story (MAG Quarterly- Volume Five, Issue Three)

September 7, 2017