In a study on cybercrime in the Asia Pacific region, published Dec. 29, 2016, Frost & Sullivan identified eight predominant schemes criminals used to gain unauthorized access into business networks. Citing major attacks against the National Payment Corp. of India and Bangladesh Central Bank, the research firm warned organizations and IT professionals to be vigilant and “cyber-ready” to protect their intellectual property and data in 2017.

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The 2016 Federal Reserve Payments Study, published Dec. 22, 2016, found continued growth in all types of noncash transactions, particularly in credit and debit card payments. The report, sponsored the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, includes three separate studies: The 2016 Depository and Financial Institutions Payments Survey (DFIPS) and 2016 Check Sample Survey (CSS) conducted by McKinsey & Company, and the 2016 Networks, Processors and Issuers Payments Surveys (NPIPS) conducted by Blueflame Consulting.

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A vibrant stock market index and historically high ecommerce spending during the 2016 holiday season have given rise to bullish predictions for payments and retail in 2017. Financial analysts expect growing adoption of mobile technologies to drive digital transformation in payments, retail and banking sectors.

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The NFC Forum released new specifications intended to enable near field communication (NFC)-enabled devices to communicate more broadly. The NFC Forum is a standards body sponsored by leading payment and technology companies, including Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Mastercard, Nokia Corp., Samsung Corp., Sony Corp. and Visa Inc.

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A number of security analysts have said Yahoo Inc.'s recent data breaches constitute yet another wake-up call to the security community, which is tasked with keeping our payments infrastructure safe from persistent and escalating attacks on the part of skilled criminals. In September 2016, Yahoo stated a security breach had occurred in 2014 that affected an estimated 500 million account holders. In December 2016, the company revealed an earlier event in 2013 had potentially affected 1 billion users. The breaches are said to be the largest ever recorded.

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On Dec. 15, 2016, Yahoo Inc. disclosed that 1 billion Yahoo accounts may have been compromised when hackers used stolen account data to enter Yahoo's network in August 2013. Yahoo share prices fell 4.4 percent after the company disclosed the security breach, Bloomberg analysts noted.

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The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), a global forum responsible for developing and managing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS), published new guidelines Dec. 9, 2016. Guidance for PCI DSS Scoping and Network Segmentation is designed help organizations understand how to segment cardholder data to reduce the number of in-scope systems in their networks and simplify PCI DSS compliance, the council stated.

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Initial retail reports revealed a spike in mobile and online commerce in the first two weeks of the holiday shopping season. Adobe Digital Insights, a subsidiary of Adobe Systems Inc., disclosed Nov. 28, 2016, that consumers spent $3.39 billion online on Cyber Monday, $50 million more than Black Friday’s overall sales and 10 percent more than the same period in the previous year. Tamara Gaffney, Principal Analyst at ADI, stated Cyber Monday sales surpassed all previous records, making it the biggest online shopping day in history.

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The U.S. Office of the Comptroller may soon be granting bank charters to fintech firms. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry shared plans for a far-reaching initiative Dec. 2, 2016, when the OCC released a paper titled Exploring Special Purpose National Bank Charters for FinTech Companies. In the paper's preface, Curry reflected on the banking industry's resilience and adaptability, noting that banks themselves were once considered revolutionary.

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Merchants with automated fuel dispensers will have another three years to prepare for the EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) liability shift. Visa Inc. and Mastercard confirmed Dec. 1, 2016, that fuel pump operators will have until Oct. 1, 2020, to upgrade pay-at-the-pump systems to chip card readers. The original deadline had been set for Oct. 1, 2017. The decision to move the deadline was based on the enormity of tasks related to the upgrade effort, Visa and Mastercard stated.

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