Blog

The Evolving Data Revolution

The following has been reposted from Convenience Store Decisions. The original post can be found here. Not so long ago, scan data meant monitoring how many of which items sold. It gave category managers a new response to vendors using purchase data to allocate shelf space. It relieved store employees from taking a best guess at…

Visa and MasterCard Offer Rules Changes

The following article comes to us courtesy of Brian Kehn from HomeServeUSA, and describes rule changes that are current as of August 12, 2019. Visa and MasterCard have new rules related to merchants who provide introductory offers, up-sells and free trial offers that turn into an ongoing subscription.  The program rules vary by card brands. …

Mitigating Mobile Fraud via Machine Learning

Many retailers have been making the shift towards applications that allow users to shop and pay for products directly through their phones. This modern way of transacting creates new avenues for tech-savvy fraudsters to benefit. There are many ways to fraud a mobile payment app; reinstallation, dummy emails, multiple devices, loading card info stolen from…

Will Big Tech Become a Payments Disrupter?

In the payments industry we regularly hear rumors about the next big disrupter. Some of these disrupters materialize, some take a while (cough, cough, contactless card acceptance[1]) and some fizzle as fast as the rumors start. One of the latest and more interesting disrupter discussions is Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra. There are a bevy of…

Circumventing Mobile Fraud Protections

With many payment channels, bad actors seek to take advantage of vulnerabilities to secure goods or funds at little to no cost to them; the same holds true for mobile payment applications. With each merchant mobile app implementation, different combinations and permutations of entry points for fraudsters arise, and in my experience, it’s the combination…

Agile Project Delivery – How Do I Know If It’s Right For My Organization?

The retail world is changing more rapidly than ever, and organizations need to deliver solutions to market faster than at any point in history. This need has driven a push to adopt Agile delivery methodologies such as Scrum, Lean and Kanban. What are the benefits and drawbacks of migrating toward Agile? The appeal of Agile…

EMV 3DS - Going to the store? Not really!

From the first moment that humanity started to identify its primary needs, it was clear that many tasks required more than one individual to complete them. The first humans had to make teams, organize, and eventually, exchange with other teams… So began payment transactions. Many years later, money was invented; and many (many, many) years…

Effective Questioning: Answering the Unasked

Communication is a challenge at all ages.  As babies, we learn to read the body language and listen to the tone of voice.  As kids, we respond to how peers act and must judge between right and wrong.  As working adults, the challenge is perhaps greatest; the interpretation of what another person is saying or…

Has Success Made You Overlook the Threat of Digital Disruption?

20 Questions to Help You Get Past Success Bias Industry after industry has faced digital disruption. None have been immune, yet companies can continue to enjoy industry leading success while a competitor or start-up builds a disruptive product or business model. For example, Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, famously said that the iPhone wouldn’t…

End-to-End Mobile Service or Technology Facilitator?

My family’s recent ordering experience was straightforward and easy – 45 minutes after we placed a food delivery order through an app, our food arrived – the food I wanted was included while my wife’s food was missing completely. At that moment, our incomplete order made us part of an ongoing debate without our realizing…