Past Articles
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The Evolving Alternative Payments Landscape
Mar 12, 2021The payments space has never been a static environment, and recently it has evolved even more rapidly with a hotbed of activity. Whether it is cryptocurrency, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) or faster payments, there are many new choices coming to market which merchants need to consider for their checkout experience.
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Engagement Opportunities and Educational Content Were Highlights at MYC21 and Tech Forum!
Mar 11, 2021MAG successfully hosted its second virtual event with the 2021 Mid-Year Conference and Tech Forum.
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MAG Introduces Interactive Payments eLearning Course
Mar 5, 2021The MAG has officially launched a first of its kind eLearning course, Merchant Payments 101! Not only was this an exciting endeavor for the MAG, but we believe it is an even more exciting resource for all stakeholders of the payments system and especially the merchant community.
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Engage with the MAG to Drive Positive Change in Payments This Year!
Mar 5, 2021I am honored to write to you today as one of the newest MAG board members. As we move into 2021, we have reason to be hopeful for a brighter tomorrow, as well as excited to be part of a payments industry that is advancing at an even faster pace into the 21st century.
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Payments During the Pandemic: the Canadian Experience
Feb 17, 2021When asked to write a piece for this edition of MAG Insights, I first thought that there would be relatively little to say about Canada’s payments experience during the COVID-19 crisis that would differ from that of other countries. As it turns out, we do have a few twists and turns of our own, all of which, unfortunately, have tended to increase merchants’ payment-acceptance costs.
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2020 – The Year of Education Transformation
Feb 2, 2021Late last year, MAG launched the MAG Learning Center, an on-demand portal filled with our educational resources including past webinars, conference presentations, best practice guides and more. On the heels of the MLC launch, we recently opened Merchants Payments 101, an online course for newbies and veterans alike, explaining the history and fundamentals of merchants’ payments acceptance. We work in an exciting, innovative industry, and we are excited to offer merchant members these tools looking to further their education in merchants payments.
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Don’t miss the MAG’s 2021 Virtual Mid-Year Conference and Tech Forum
Jan 14, 2021MAG’s Mid-Year Conference and Tech Forum are shaping up to be an exciting kickoff to 2021!
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MAG offers merchant members many benefits!
Jan 8, 2021MAG offers a diverse offering of member benefits for our merchant members. Our education, networking with industry peers, and advocacy efforts are at the top of the list.
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A Rise in Fraud Keeps Online Merchants on Toes. An overview of how fraud affects the digital goods industry and the industry solution
Jan 7, 2021At the end of the day, it is inevitable: as e-commerce grows (booming amid our global crisis), so has fraud within the industry. As payments have moved online over the past two decades and increasingly the last 10 months, the fraudsters have followed close behind, exploiting the weaknesses of merchant security systems.
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A Merchant's Point of View on the Value of Communities of Practice
Jan 7, 2021Compared to many of my fellow payments professionals, I still consider myself a “newbie.” I found my way onto The Home Depot’s Financial Services team in 2016 where I helped transition our business and technology teams into product management and agile development.
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What’s Up in Washington: A Look Back at 2020 and What Happens Next
Dec 16, 20202021 presents unique challenges as policymakers grapple with a pandemic and Presidential transition at the same time. These external factors could mean it takes extra effort and a longer amount of time to see payments policy changes through advocacy and educational efforts, but merchants should not be deterred.
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Success for the MAG’s first Virtual Tech Forum and Annual Conference!
Dec 11, 2020MAG hosted its first virtual Tech Forum and Annual Conference in October 2020. The Tech Forum saw record attendance with nearly 500 registrants, a 57% increase from its inaugural event in 2019, and the Annual Conference, with over 800 registrants, had a 27% increase in attendance compared to 2019 Annual Conference.
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Community Contributions Towards Positive Change
Dec 10, 2020As we come to the end of the calendar year, we should all look back and evaluate our contributions to our personal and professional development, including the investments we made in driving change personally and professionally with, of course, recognition to that which is within our control. What were your contributions in this challenging year of 2020, and where do you want to focus your efforts in 2021 in order to influence the future?
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MAG 2020 Year-in-Review
Dec 9, 2020The date was February 11th, MAG was having the opening session of the Mid-Year Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with hundreds of payment professionals gathered to network and learn about payment services, trends and initiatives that impact merchants’ customers and bottom line.
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Merchant Business Group Launched by W3C
Dec 9, 2020Web standards organization the World Wide Web consortium launches forum for online merchant requirements with discounted membership available for MAG members.
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The 3 Types of Payment Fraud and How to Prevent Them
Dec 5, 2020To accurately prevent and respond to disputes, merchants must understand why a dispute happened. To do so, merchants can categorize payment fraud into three different types and learn how to prevent each kind of fraud.
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A Year of Opportunity
Dec 3, 2020This year started with hope and promise no different from years prior, but it took a sudden and unexpected change, COVID-19, that has challenged us all in different ways. For some, the challenge has been centered around how to keep the country fed and employees safe. For others, it has been focused on how to keep businesses viable. In a matter of days, we were creating new business practices to serve our customers in ways we had not considered in the past while also accelerating pilots of new operational models to serve their expectations.
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The Magnetic Stripe Retirement Plan
Jul 1, 2020The magnetic stripe has been around since the sixties – the same decade I was born as well as the birth of the cassette tape. Is it time for this major underperformer to retire? Not me! I am talking about the retirement of the magnetic (mag) stripe. Although I won’t comment on my relevance in today’s environment, we all know how things turned out for the audio cassette.
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Kroger’s Path to EMV at their Automated Fueling Dispenser
Jul 1, 2020Multiple teams and vendors at Kroger spent three years of planning, development, and rollout to ensure its Fuel Dispenser EMV conversion was a success not just for the company, but for customers as well.
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Secure Remote Commerce and the SRCI
Mar 5, 2020You may have noticed that every website you visit supports a variety of different checkout experiences. Some use PayPal, Visa Checkout, or Masterpass, but others use their own custom experiences. Often, this means you must re-enter the same details on many different websites.
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