Worldwide adoption of mobile technologies is fueling innovative, new mobile fraud vectors, according to recent studies by ThreatMetrix and TSYS. Researchers found increased vigilance among consumers and service providers against pernicious, sophisticated attacks. The H2 2018 Cybercrime Report, published by ThreatMetrix, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions company, reported a 107 percent increase in attacks on mobile account logins in the second half of 2018. The biannual study was based on 17 billion digital transactions processed on the ThreatMetrix Digital Identity Network, with 61 percent originating on a mobile device. The 2018 Consumer Payment Study, published by Total Systems Services Inc. (TSYS), found 66 percent of consumers are using their financial institution's mobile app to access banking information.

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Who says plastic payment cards are dead? While the advent of Apple Pay and similar mobile payment apps led some experts to predict that cards would go the way of the dinosaur, new research from Auriemma Consulting Group suggests that's not happening. Consumers have continued to swipe and dip physical cards into POS devices, and now they're beginning to use the tap-and-go feature available on many credit and debit cards. Chalk it up to an aversion to change. "Consumers have been repeatedly asked to change their payment behavior," said Jaclyn Holmes, director of Auriemma Research. "While adjusting to various card payments is easy, the larger switch in the physical mechanism of phone payments takes more time."

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First Data Corp. and its Clover platform division recently launched CloverAchievers, a program designed to award up to $100,000 in cash, prizes and business grants to qualifying small and midsize merchants. Applicants must be based in the United States and have 1,500 or fewer employees, Clover representatives stated. Winners will receive a combination of a cash grant, a Clover technology makeover and donations made in their names to charitable organizations. John Beatty, founder of Clover, noted that CloverAchievers is designed by and for entrepreneurs. "As an entrepreneur myself, launching a business and watching it grow, I personally understand the daily challenges business owners face in running and growing their businesses," he said.

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The Electronic Transactions Association's emphasis on education is evident throughout its diverse initiatives and programs ‒ from certification of payments professionals to webinars on emerging industry issues to meetings with members of Congress organized to explain aspects of payments that would otherwise elude them, and more. Recently, the organization's ongoing commitment to education was on full display at Transact 19. Held at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, the association's annual conference's multi-threaded agenda provided multiple opportunities for interactive learning and professional development. In addition to recognizing ETA's Forty Under 40, sponsored by Discover Global Network, the ETA emphasized the need for payments professionals to continuously update their knowledge of technology, security and emerging trends to navigate the ever-changing payments landscape.

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Redacted UK legal documents filed by Amazon in November 2018 and now publicly available provide insight into a fraud campaign that targeted Amazon's Seller Central platform from May through October 2018. During that time, criminals succeeded in hacking the bank accounts of approximately 100 merchants selling on Amazon. The extent of damages is not yet known, nor is the identity of the fraudsters responsible. Highlighting the difficulty of identifying thieves hacking automated platforms, lawyers for Amazon asked a judge presiding in a London court to allow them to search account statements at two financial institutions where the hackers are believed to have transferred funds: Barclays Plc and Prepay Technologies Ltd.

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Funders, lenders, legal analysts and service providers gathered at New York City's Roosevelt Hotel for the second annual Broker Fair. Balcony seating in the hotel's grand ballroom accommodated the approximately 800 attendees, who cheered when Broker Fair founder and deBanked president and chief editor Sean Murray opened the conference. Noting that the movie Wall Street had been taped in the very same ballroom in 1987, Murray recalled Gordon Gekko's famous "greed is good" speech, stating that it's no longer greed that is good, but aligned interests that are good.

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Approximately 4,000 payments professionals gathered at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay for Transact 19, the Electronic Transactions Association's annual convention and expo. Opening comments by Amy Zirkle, interim CEO and Kevin Jones, president of the ETA, reflected the show's forward-looking focus in an industry marked by disruption, consolidation and building for the future. "It's an important time for our industry to come together and plot our future and drive forward digital commerce," Zirkle stated. "All over the world, the way we interact with money is changing, and our industry must remain one of the most innovative in the world to power the new frontiers of commerce."

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Robert O. Carr is something of a legend in the merchant acquiring space. An early entrant into the field, he led Heartland Payment Systems from an upstart to a $4 billion acquisition by leading acquirer Global Payments Inc. Along the way he formed a foundation that helps put economically disadvantaged youth through college, wrote a book about the journey from his hardscrabble roots to millionaire entrepreneur, and took many of his competitors to task over lack of transparency in merchant pricing. While at Heartland Carr published the “Merchants Bill of Rights” and challenged others in the industry to adopt similar fair processing practices.

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