June, 2016

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Number Of Millennial Households Expected To Soar Over Next 10 Years

PYMNTS

A lot of millennials are still living at home with their parents, but as more and more of them begin moving out in the coming years, they could have a significant impact on both the housing and rental markets. Many millennials – defined in the study as adults currently between 25 to 34 years old – are still living with their parents due to a series of economic factors, but as they start to age and move out on their own the number of millennial households is expected to swell by about 2 million n

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New Tool To Help Consumers Battle Identity Theft

PYMNTS

A new mobile app from identity theft protection company IDShield was released on Monday (June 6) and aims to help consumers by putting information and control in their hands when it comes to safeguarding against identity theft threats. IDShield said its all-new app will feature up-to-date and comprehensive identity monitoring information, as well as access to a private investigator if issues do arise for a user.

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Apple Pay’s Tough Twenty Months

PYMNTS

In the mood for a little role play today? Your head of product walks into your office with his end of quarter report for one of your flagship services. This service was positioned as a critical feature in driving demand for other products and services in the company’s portfolio. It’s been nearly two years – 20 months to be precise — since it was launched after significant investments in engineering, marketing and promotion.

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The Great Merchant Terminal Makeover

PYMNTS

Mobile technology, already a fixture in consumers’ daily lives, is having a major impact on the retail industry. Merchants are turning to mobile technology in the form of mPOS platforms in order to better serve and connect with their customers and make sure those customers return. To discuss how mobile, full-service payments solutions are impacting retailers, for this month’s Tracker cover story, PYMNTS caught up with executives from CardFlight, Retail Pro and ShopKeep, as well as with Jordan Mc

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The Human Side of Finance: The Intersectionality of People, Culture, Adaptability, and Resilience

Speaker: Melissa Hurrington

Finance isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about the people behind them. In a world of constant disruption, resilient finance teams aren’t just operationally efficient. They are adaptable, engaged, and deeply connected to a strong organizational culture. Success lies at the intersection of people, culture, adaptability, and resilience. Finance leaders who master this balance will build teams that thrive through uncertainty and drive long-term business impact.

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Breaking Down The Big Business Of Fraud

PYMNTS

Fraudsters always seem to be one step ahead of both the consumers and businesses they target. They have the uncanny ability to slip in unnoticed, wreak havoc and essentially walk away unscathed (and paid). Though victims of fraud attacks may never be able to beat cybercriminals at their own game, it’s clear that knowledge is power. As Don Bush, VP of Marketing at Kount , recently told Karen Webster , knowing what’s coming can better prepare you to defend yourself. “If you don’t know

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How Starbucks Killed My Favorite Payment Experience (And Called It A Success)

PYMNTS

Like most people, I still make the majority of my purchases with credit cards. But the one place I’ve always used my phone to pay has been Starbucks. Why did I never think twice before using the Starbucks mobile app to pay for all my purchases there? For the same reasons that it has become one of the most popular mobile payments experiences in the world — it was easy to use, accepted at most Starbucks, and had a rewarding loyalty program.

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Visa’s Merchant-Friendly EMV Moves

PYMNTS

Visa is the first to admit that a lot of progress has been made in the U.S. EMV migration over the last seven months. Today, there are 300 million chip cards in circulation and 1.2 million EMV merchant locations. It’s also the first to say that there could and should be more places for consumers to use their chip cards. Terminal certification has, so far, been a big barrier to making that possible, and the hue and cry across the ecosystem over the EMV certification backlog has now reached

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RegTech: The Innovation Enabler

PYMNTS

[link]. When you think FinTech, many words come to mind — startups, disruption, innovation, consumer-centric — but there’s also regulation. It can be seen as one of the biggest headaches facing FinTechs today and is considered a significant barrier to entry. On average, approximately 20 percent of a FinTech’s operational costs are dedicated to the governance and compliance area.

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Moving Beyond The Paper Trail

PYMNTS

The movement by small and midsized businesses to fully accept and work with electronic payments has been a gradual one, and one that has been marked by concerns surrounding costs. Firms have tread cautiously with respect to electronic payments, with costs dominating the argument against transitioning. After all, it does take time and money to bring accounting systems up to speed and to enable platforms to deal with processing fees tied to transactions.

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Visa’s NFC Payment Ring Comes To Olympics

PYMNTS

Visa just rolled out the next generation of payments wearables: an NFC-enabled payment ring. And it’s bringing it to the Olympics for the Visa-sponsored athletes to use at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This is the first prototype of its kind to be backed by Visa. These NFC payment rings will be used by all Team Visa athletes in Rio, along with 45 Olympic hopefuls from around the world.

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Maximizing Profit and Productivity: The New Era of AI-Powered Accounting

Speaker: Yohan Lobo

In the accounting world, staying ahead means embracing the tools that allow you to work smarter, not harder. Outdated processes and disconnected systems can hold your organization back, but the right technologies can help you streamline operations, boost productivity, and improve client delivery. Dive into the strategies and innovations transforming accounting practices.

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TSYS Puts Bitcoin In Perspective

PYMNTS

Russell Moore, Director of Innovation at TSYS , agrees that it’s been misused in a myriad of ways, but feels that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer merchants the chance to view payment processing in a new way. He gives PYMNTS a different take on the use of cryptocurrencies in payments. PYMNTS: What is the biggest misconception about bitcoin and digital currencies in terms of the payments processing perspective?

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Amazon Leaves Its Bike Messengers Bitter

PYMNTS

Amazon’s move to kill its bike delivery program for its Prime Now service in Seattle, Washington, has left its bicycle messengers disheartened. The Prime Now service, which was originally launched in New York City in late 2014, was expanded to Seattle in August last year after its initial success. Despite growing demand for the service, the company decided to put a kibosh on bike deliveries for Prime Now without giving much notice to its partner messengers.

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Payments’ Half-Year Progress Report

PYMNTS

At the start of the year, I wrote a piece that outlined six trends that I suggested would set the agenda for payments innovation and commerce reinvention in 2016. The foundation for those six trends was the ability for innovators to leverage the near ubiquity of mobile devices and the ability to connect those devices – and many others – to the internet.

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Fraudulent Payment Processors Accused Of Stealing Millions

PYMNTS

Complainants in a Nevada lawsuit are accusing the owners of what’s believed to be a fake payments processing company of stealing millions of dollars from an online seller. That seller is beauty product retailer DermaKtive, which claims that a man committed fraud with the assistance of his mother and girlfriend. This fraud reportedly involved using what was believed to be payment processing for credit and debit card transactions, along with refunds.

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Smarter Card Solutions: Meeting the Challenges of Mid-Market Travel & Expense

Our 2025 Center Travel Survey is clear: as corporate travel increases, so does corporate credit cards distribution, and a rise in off-platform travel booking. This 61% rise causes various challenges: compliance, spend control, reporting problems, and a lack of visibility across organizations. To evolve with the ever-changing needs of travelers, decision-makers need a better solution.

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Visa Gives Issuers New Tool To Capture Digital Commerce Opportunity

PYMNTS

Hear the words “factory floor” and the image of assembly lines and the manufacturing of physical products immediately comes to mind. Not anymore – or at least not when the Visa Commerce team uses those words. The Visa team, according to SVP of Issuer Processing, Todd Brockman, has been hard at work on the “apps factory floor” creating the Visa Digital Commerce App , an issuer-branded mobile commerce solution that will allow financial institutions to customize and deliver their own branded mobil

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Visa Reduces Fraud At The Pump By 50+ Percent

PYMNTS

Gas stations offer a lot of benefits for card fraudsters. They’re unattended, which makes it easy (and even inconspicuous) for them to check out whether their counterfeit cards are alive and well and ready to use. Recognizing that problem for station owner/operators, in 2014, Visa introduced the Visa Transaction Advisor (VTA) to help these retailers fight back, especially given the anticipated lag in equipping fuel pumps with EMV readers.

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Amazon Launches Digital Education Service

PYMNTS

Amazon has already done its part to disrupt one aspect of the educational industry by opening up the previously narrow textbook resale market. However, Amazon’s education division has even bigger plans for the classroom itself. Amazon announced Monday (June 27) that it had officially launched Amazon Inspire, a free digital learning resource platform intended to help teachers locate and leverage materials appropriate for every age level when designing lessons plans or during classroom activ

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Amex Gives Merchants EMV Chargeback Break

PYMNTS

American Express has announced changes to its EMV chargeback policy in order to ease the transition as merchants migrate their POS systems to be EMV-compliant. This move is aimed at helping merchants limit their fraud losses, and as of the end of August of this year, merchants will not be liable for counterfeit fraud chargebacks for any transaction under $25.

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Say ‘Goodbye’ to Clunky Spreadsheets and Say ‘Hello’ to Month-End Automation

Technology is rapidly changing the way accountants perform and manage month-end activities. Spreadsheets, emails, and shared drives no longer need to slow you down. In under four weeks, your team can start reaping the benefits of month-end close automation by vastly reducing spreadsheets, cut down on reconciliation work, speed up the month-end close, and better manage your remote team.

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The Changing Demographics Of The Grocery Game

PYMNTS

Until very recently, grocery was easily viewable as a static category in the United States. An extremely important one — since it is one of the few absolutely necessary categories that one can count on pretty much all consumers to spend in — but a fairly predictable one because of all that built-in necessity. Which meant for a long time much of grocery looked and felt very much the same.

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MasterCard Expands EMV Self-Certification Program

PYMNTS

It’s been a tough road on the way to EMV terminal deployment here in the U.S. The move has been complicated by the combination of most merchants getting a very late start to the EMV process – the Target breach was what many merchants considered their official starting line despite announcements by the card networks years earlier – and a complicated certification process that’s been tough for some merchants to navigate.

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FinTech’s Bright Future Marred by Hype

PYMNTS

Silicon Valley has the banking industry in its crosshairs. Hardly a day, hardly even a nanosecond, goes by without a VC, entrepreneur, or tech media pundit claiming that some Internet-something-or-other is going to take out the stodgy financial services industry. It’s even gone mainstream: Lesley Stahl’s breathless “60 Minutes” interview with the 20-something Stripe founders ends with the anchor exclaiming , “Oh!

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How Long Will Bitcoin’s Price Boom Stick?

PYMNTS

Is bitcoin making a comeback? Oh, if we had a bitcoin for every time we’ve heard that question. Actually, that would be pretty difficult to calculate how much we’d actually have in real dollars since its price trend is so volatile. Every time bitcoin shoots above the $500 mark, the digital currency world starts buzzing about why bitcoin is here to stay and why it’s going to shoot above the $600 mark soon.

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Outsourcing Vs. In-House: The Ultimate Battle For Better Collections

Speaker: Susan Richards

Your past-due accounts are growing, cash flow is tightening, and the pressure is on. The big question: Do you handle the collections internally or outsource to experts? Both strategies come with advantages and risks - but which one delivers the best impact for your business? In this session we’ll dive deep into the in-house vs. outsourcing debate, examining cost-effectiveness, efficiency, compliance risks, and overall recovery success rates.

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First Data’s Bid To Go Beyond Payments Acceptance

PYMNTS

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, goes the old saying. And, in payments, there are a slew of providers clamoring for the chance to get in on the ground floor with those little acorns so that – as they become those mighty oaks – they are able to ride the growth curve along with them. There’s only one problem: Many services providers who are great at catering to the little acorns can’t accommodate their needs on the way up to becoming the mighty oaks.

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Why FIs Have Trouble Identifying Fraudulent Activity

PYMNTS

It’s getting harder for financial institutions to distinguish between fraudulent activity and the activity performed by their legitimate customers. According to research from Kaspersky Lab and B2B International , released on Tuesday (June 14), nearly 38 percent of financial organizations find it very difficult to tell if a customer’s account activity is fraudulent or not.

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Shoplifting: Retail’s $45 Billion Problem

PYMNTS

Retailers are struggling to keep tabs on shoplifters who are increasingly becoming their top source of loss, averaging $377 per incidence, up $60 from the year before. At 39 percent, shoplifting was found to be the biggest contributor among factors that led to overall inventory shrinkage in 2015 causing a $45.2 billion loss across the United States, according to NRF’s 2016 National Retail Security survey.

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Pinterest Gets a Brand New Shopping Bag

PYMNTS

About a year ago “buy buttons” were all the rage as the next big thing in social commerce. The logic was sound – social media platforms are full of users who are talking about, reviewing and sharing products of all shapes and sizes. Why not embed a button that makes them able to convert – on the spot – while they are looking/thinking/talking about whatever it is?

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AP Automation: The Competitive Advantage Your Business Needs

Speaker: Danny Gassaway and Wayne Richards

Finance leaders are prioritizing efficiency and digital transformation, yet many hesitate to automate due to uncertainty. Without a clear understanding of its impact, organizations risk falling behind competitors who are leveraging technology to drive productivity and cost savings. So, how do you make the case for automation within your organization?

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Facebook Urges Retailers To Start Investing In Mobile … Now!

PYMNTS

Speaking at a trade conference in Chicago earlier this week, Facebook’s Head of U.S. E-Commerce Jeremy Lewis made his pitch for mobile for retailers, saying that it’s no longer optional because it is undeniably the future. “Mobile isn’t a thing. It’s the thing,” Lewis said. “Every company needs to invest heavily in mobile.”. Lewis went on to explain that to date, developers are handing in 1,000 new mobile apps for iOS and Android every single day — and those apps are coming out becau

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How To Build A Mobile Payments Network

PYMNTS

[link]. Wanna know the secret to launching a mobile payments network? Don’t make its value proposition to either merchants or consumers about payments. That’s the key insight from LevelUp Chief Ninja Seth Priebatsch, someone who has been beavering away at building a mobile payments network since 2011. In this week’s installment of PYMNTS’ video/audio series The Matchmaker Is In , hosts Karen Webster and David Evans, economist, MPD Founder and co-author of the bestselling book “ Matchmakers: Th

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Western Union Brings Cuba Digital Money Transfers

PYMNTS

Global payments company Western Union announced on Tuesday (June 7) that it is bringing mobile and online money transfers to Cuba through the Western Union app and website. With over 15 years of working in the Cuba market, Western Union said the move reflects its efforts to bring its global omnichannel strategy to the Cuban diaspora in the United States.

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London Stock Exchange Lands On Anonymous’ Hit List

PYMNTS

In May, hacktivist group Anonymous warned multiple financial institutions that it was going to take them down as part of Operation Icarus. Late last week, on Thursday (June 2), the London Stock Exchange (LSE) found itself in the group’s crosshairs in the latest leg of the attack, reported Newsweek. The stock exchange’s site reportedly experienced a two-hour disruption as the result of what is believed to be a DDoS attack carried out by the well-known hackers.

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Navigating Payroll Compliance: Future-Proofing Payroll in an Evolving Regulatory Landscape

Speaker: Jennifer Hill

Payroll compliance is a cornerstone of business success, yet for small and midsize businesses, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of federal, state, and local regulations. Mistakes can lead to costly penalties and operational disruptions, making it essential to adopt advanced solutions that ensure accuracy and efficiency.