Rippleshot Blog

As the payments ecosystem continues to evolve and improve through new innovation, consumers are looking for easier, faster and more convenient methods to conduct transactions. 

This article was first published on PaymentWeek

In the last six months, we have seen these platforms compete and sometimes struggle, for market share as more retailers and tech companies introduced their respective mobile payment platforms.

As we start 2016 off, is security against data breaches on your company’s new year’s resolutions list? Over 750 data breaches were reported in 2015 and we will likely see an increase in quantity as well as impact in 2016. Experian recently released their annual Data Breach Industry Forecast and while breaches are expected to increase, who they are targeting and their methods are expected to change. Based on this report, we’ve created a helpful list of three things to add to your company’s new year’s resolutions for 2016.

We often hear about the hundreds of data breaches that hamper organizations every year and the impact cybercrime has on merchants, financial institutions and consumers. But rarely do we see the criminals behind these attacks identified by law enforcement, and it is an even rarer sight to see these criminals brought to justice. For many cases involving a data breach, it can take years to gather enough evidence for law enforcement to move forward with an investigation.

It has been almost a month since EMV’s adoption began here in the United States, and many consumers are still unaware of this massive change in the payment ecosystem. While you would be hard-pressed to find a payments expert who would classify the EMV shift as a disaster, when it rains, it pours.

We have yet to talk to a bank or credit union that isn’t employing real-time decline rules based around FICO Falcon or Visa VAA score bands - and with good reason. This solution has been around for an incredibly long time and is baked right into many existing risk management solutions. But payment card fraud is higher than it’s ever been - so what’s the problem?

Welcome to the second part of our blog series on cybersecurity and foreign affairs. Last week, we covered the recent data breaches and security incidents involving Russian-based hackers that have targeted organizations here in the United States, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the White House. 

In 2014, over 1 billion records were stolen due to data breaches and other security-related incidents. Some of the most well known brands here in the United States were the target of cyberattacks, making it nearly impossible to not be affected, or know of someone who had been.

There is just over one week left before the EMV liability shift takes place, and it’s looking like neither consumers nor merchants will be as prepared as expected. Though many experts have been claiming for months that the U.S. will be unlikely to hit the self-imposed October 1st deadline, recent surveys have shown a much more grim outlook.

In 2013, the Target data breach had everyone from consumers, businesses, financial institutions and those who sit somewhere in-between, trying to navigate following a catastrophic data theft. Consumers frustrated by the retailer’s data security standards attempted to bring Target to justice through class action lawsuits. However, a recent court ruling has made it much easier for organizations that suffer a data breach to be sued by affected customers. Up until late July, breached companies were able to use a legal rule to shield them from potential damages related to class action lawsuits.

The latest fraud scheme is targeting an unlikely audience of millennials, and using social media to do it. By hitting an audience of college students or recent graduates who are likely cash-strapped and living paycheck to paycheck, the fraudsters are cashing in - literally - on this group’s often outright desperation for a quick buck.

As we approached the end of 2014, dubbed “the year of the data breach”, the US had experienced a record high of 783 publicly announced data breaches. You could not turn on the TV, open a newspaper or surf the internet without hearing how globally recognized organizations like Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, UPS, Target and many more fell victim to a breach. Consumers experienced data breach fatigue and started to become unfazed as breach after breach was uncovered. With the 2015 holiday season nearing, analysts are looking to see if 2014’s stretch of breaches will affect consumer shopping habits in 2015.

The race to launch the next big mobile payment application turned into a full out sprint after Apple Pay debuted in the fall of last year. The four front-runners - Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, Android Pay and CurrentC - are all competing for market share in a crowded and quickly changing payments space. Curious what the differences are between them, and which, if any, will be the answer to a growing payment card fraud problem? We break it all down, with the details you need to know:

One of the latest trends in the security industry is experiencing resurgence, involves a device that nearly everyone with a smartphone has used at least once in the last twelve months. They’re in nearly every airport, your favorite restaurant or bar, conferences; it’s nearly impossible to miss the charging stations that keep our lifelines to the world charged. These charging stations are manufactured and distributed across the country by a variety of a vendors, however there is a serious security threat that dates back as a far as 2013.

In the payment security space, the news is almost impossible to ignore. EMV chip-enabled cards are coming, along with an incredibly important fraud liability shift. As of October, whichever party (issuers or merchants) is not EMV compliant will take responsibility for fraud and all related chargebacks.

In a post covering the Fraud Summit here in Chicago in May, we discussed the growing concern over whether or not merchants will be able to meet the rapidly approaching deadline. The concern though, isn’t with the big box merchants, many of whom are already compliant - it’s with the smaller merchants who don’t have the technical support and cash that the larger companies have to implement overhauls of this size and scope.

Unfortunately, a recent survey by Wells Fargo confirms the suspicions that these smaller merchants won’t be ready. In fact, 68% of the small business owners surveyed in early July weren’t even aware that the EMV shift was happening.