Episodes

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 Services at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed another economic force that needs to be confronted, th...

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 behind an order. The rules are based on the assumption that if a cardholder has engaged in previous...

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 a loss of customers and an impaired ability to attract new ones. This discussion—between Marcell Ki...

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 Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, probes deeper into embedded payments and what businesses can do...

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 has the potential to increase cash flow, save businesses a lot of money, improve customer service, a...

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 service sometime in 2023. The manner in which real-time payments evolve in the U.S. may be a bit differe...

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 ensuring that both real-time payments (RTP) and FedNow functionalities operate at their peak, deliv...

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 Item Clearing When Check 21 was instituted in 2004, there was great excitement about the new proces...

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 with the help of AI and biometrics, compliance is becoming a lot more efficient and effective. In a r...

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, real-time payments capabilities were limited to specialized and sometimes costly options, such as wire transfers. Since...

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 Insight platform, merchants can effectively block chargebacks from being initiated and prevent the adva...

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 their liquidity in 2023. Basel IV and Continued Regulation Banks are required to maintain a certain lev...

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 survey, identifying key challenges, priorities, and readiness for real-time payments in the ever-chan...

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 data related to payments that will be transmitted under ISO 20022 standards is so robust that it gives ...

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 to adopt. “Because of inflation, I see consumers looking for more bargains when they shop online,” ...

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 payments. This new standard will provide much more granular and robust data about payments, which finan...

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, but the channels in which payments are taking place have changed. In the wake of COVID-19 lockdow...

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 President of ACH Network Administration at Nacha chatted with Brian Riley, Co-Director of Payments a...

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 consumers the option of paying the way they want. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Nitin Prabhu, Vice...

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 because they’re unsure of which negotiation service is the right fit. Ransomware negotiation is a niche ...

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 and transparency. Javelin Strategy & Research’s “Cyber-Trust in Banking Scorecard,” which ranked 2...

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 ACH Network Rules Process & Communication at Nacha. “Over 93% of American workers use Direct Deposit...

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 hackers aren’t listening to moving tumblers until they hear that click, but they are leveraging partial...

It’s been about five years since real-time payments (RTP) became a reality in the U.S., and their popularity and adoption continue to skyrocket. According to a survey U.S. Bank conducted among 1,000 financial executives across various industries in May and June of 2022, 56% said they will adopt real-time payments by 2024. Furthermore, 41% of companies described as “RTP leaders” saw an increase in revenue compared with the previous year, while only 33% of “RTP laggards” reported the same. A furt...