After fifteen years of stabilising
(EMV) Chip & PIN, we the industry like to think we are on a winner. Indeed
this should be viewed as the case and the reality, despite the global media and
the occasional journal from Cambridge.
That said, the number of ongoing
bulletin releases on the EMVCo website and the pro-longed migration to Chip
& PIN does highlight that this is not always a straightforward exercise for
those involved.
Now let's consider the payment Schemes themselves -
international and domestic (where they still exist). Establishing an
interoperable,Save on hydraulic hose
and fittings, consistent Chip & PIN environment has triggered much marketing
on payment security for counterfeit, lost and stolen fraud activity.
Costs have decreased, but for many this is attributable to strategic
sourcing of chip masks, operating systems and point of sale upgrades. Divergent
activity to the main market solutions has and will continue to challenge
stakeholders.
So now I don't need a PIN?...We processes for both
low-risk and high risk merchant account.
Contrast to this is the parallel push for contactless payments and
payments without the need for a cardholder verification - PIN or signature
(CVM). Well, that is the media play anyway! See recent media backlash to FastPay
in Australia for transactions less than A$35.
Depending on the market,
the no CVM limit for contactless transactions can be as high as three figures as
it is in Australia - set at A$100 for both PayPass and PayWave. It can be low,
as in the UK at the new level of ¡ê15. Yet, this is not the actual limit for
contactless transactions - transactions can still occur in excess of these
levels, as long as a PIN is applied as well. Consider the current focus on
mobile and the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) for tap & go with the
phone.
It is not expected that up to A$100 you can use your phone, only
to have to pull out the old fashioned plastic for transactions in excess of
A$100.
Consistent payment experiences
So what of the experience
of contactless. As a carrier of multiple PayPass cards, the experience in 3 key
markets has been quite telling. The UK, US and Australia.
As a regular
in the UK throughout 2010, I frequented a local coffee shop on Kingsway in
London who has a contactless reader. Needless to say, coffee is not overly
expensive, yet not once in 12 months was I directed to that device. Contactless
in the UK was contained solely to Oyster transactions.
The US was
markedly different, both in buying lunch at the MasterCard HQ cafe and making
transactions in retailers in Ohio. Nothing overly stood out other than proving
that my Australia PayPass cards did work effectively in the US markets Mag
Stripe Defined (MSD) implementation model and were fast.
Now for
Australia. With Chip & PIN consistency has always been the goal.What to
consider before you buy oil painting
supplies. Yet for contactless this is far from the experience.Choose from
one of the major categories of Bedding,
Please hold sir...
Sydney has a mono-rail system which now has
contactless payment acceptance. Depending on the station you from which you
purchase your ticket the contactless experience could lead to missing the mono
rail as it passes by. A CBD based station allowed me to wave my card - and after
2 goes we had success. A station at Darling Harbour required me to hand the card
over as the reader was behind the secure glass and the attendant took 3 attempts
to get the transaction to process - only by HOLDING the card in place. After
waiting for the ticket and receipts etc; perhaps cash may have been a better bet
had I not been conducting a mystery shop exercise. (The bank was advised to no
avail.)
A chip card being used to its full potential...incredible
The trigger for today's blog was a McDonalds transaction yesterday.
Perhaps hard to believe, but the receipt (yes not an option, we waited for all
30cm of it to be printed) actually had an Authorisation Response code of 'Y1' on
it. This is fascinating - to actually experience an offline authorisation
approval. Not even an electronic fallback transaction! As I still had to wait
for the food, I watched the device subsequently commence connection procedures
and submit an advice to its acquirer. (They know who they are - well done for
using chip to its full potential).
Most clients question the transaction
speed benefit! It is indeed hard to defend the speed benefit when devices are
authorising online in most cases and receipts are being printed etc.Complete
Your sculpture Magazine Collection for
Less! It is extremely hard to defend when you know that the card more often than
not needs to be held in range longer than expected. While merchant training can
be resolved - a number did not know how the reader activated or worked. Delays
in activation are also a problem.
Ubiquity in contactless...not so fast
- but eventually
So with fifteen years to achieve the current state for
Chip & PIN (and the US reaching an inevitable tipping point), the
contactless and NFC advancement of main stream payments may yet continue to
struggle. Perhaps the point should be not to compare to traditional main stream
card payment methods of swipe/dock and PIN/sign.
Perhaps this is why
contactless transit operations and innovative start ups like sQuid, Snapper and
the like are accepted. Their attention is on cash and are separated from access
to consumer banking accounts - credit or transactional debit.
Square is picking up steam. This week, Twitter co-founder and CEO of
Square Inc. Jack Dorsey announced it had 500,000 Square card readers
shipped and roughly one million transactions processed in May.Complete
Your sculpture Magazine Collection for Less!Use bluray burner to burn video to BD DVD on blu ray burner
disc. Not only that, Square is processing $3 million in mobile payments
each day from Android and iOS devices. Add an undisclosed investment
from Visa last month, and Square's COO Keith Rabois might just be
right: There could very well be a 95% chance that Square will do better
than PayPal.
Good thing it didn't go with its original name.
Speaking
at a conference in San Francisco where he also received the 21st
Century Visionary Award, Dorsey dropped a few tidbits on how Square
came to be. Among them, its original name was Squirrel and the shape of
the dongle was not a simple cube, but an acorn. It wasn't until a
lunch at Apple where the name and design was changed.
According to the story,Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding,
Dorsey was lunching with Apple's SVP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall
in 2009. And right there, in the Apple cafeteria, they saw a
point-of-sale system made by Squirrel Systems. Obviously, there would
have been a potential overlap and thus Square was born.
Still, despite the new name,Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services.What to consider before you buy oil painting supplies. it would have been interesting to see how many users would have trusted to swipe their credit card through a plastic acorn.
Areximbank-Gazprombank Group said today its cardholders now have the
opportunity to get discounts at more than 120 shopping centers, hotels,
insurance companies, medical centers, as well as various leisure and
entertainment facilities throughout Armenia.
The bank said in a statement discounts can
be obtained both in non-cash transactions and by producing Areximbank -
Gazprombank Group credit cards. It said also the number of items at discounted
services will continue to grow, with corresponding data to be updated every
three months.
The press office of the bank said it has already
introduced several new card projects this year, including issuance of ArCa
cards, introduction of day-night money transfers between Russia and Armenia via
plastic cards, and allowed also its clients to manage their accounts from
anywhere via computer and cell phone.
According to the forecasts, in
2011 the bank is expected to increase the total number of issued cards by at
least 8-10 thousand to 82,000. To date, the bank has 47 ATMs and 142
POS-terminals in Yerevan and the regions of Armenia.
Areximbank-Gazprombank Group (formerly Areximbank) was established in
1998 to handle financial flows between Armenia and Russia.Choose from one of the
major categories of Bedding, It is a
principled member of VISA International and MasterCard International payment
systems.Our Polymax RUBBER SHEET
range includes all commercial and specialist In 2007 it joined Armenian ArCa
payment system.Full color plastic
card printing and manufacturing services. The bank is owned fully by Russian
Gazprombank and has 6 branches in Yerevan and 9 in regions.Complete Your sculpture Magazine Collection for
Less!
Sony Ericsson's announcement of the Xperia Play was met with both
bewilderment and intrigue; could Sony's solid, established strategy in
gaming really be applied to mobile, and if so, is slapping some
familiar hardware controls on the back of the Xperia Arc the best way
to do that? Sure, Sony has had plenty of experience making portable
gaming devices like the PSP Go, but Sony Ericsson is still very much a
separate entity from the PlayStation family. The only other player in a
remotely similar situation is Microsoft, who is trying to push a whole
mobile OS to take advantage of the Xbox Our Polymax RUBBER SHEET range includes all commercial and specialist360.Save on hydraulic hose
and fittings, Nintendo is having none of it, leaving it a two-horse
race between the established video game pros.Complete Your sculpture
Magazine Collection for Less! The only real x-factor is Apple, who has
done a great job at popularizing mobile apps, games being the most used
among them. iOS 4 even introduced an Xbox Live-style achievement and
social network called Game Center. However, despite making a gold mine
for old and new game developers alike, portable gaming had still been
existing in its own bubble for some time.Full color plastic card printing and manufacturing services.
Now
that we're starting to see some crossover between the two industries,
interesting new takes on smartphone like the Xperia Play doesn't seem
so crazy. Though it's a new mash-up,Choose from one of the major
categories of Bedding,
it's still heavily steeped in the established Android world. There are
a lot of questions to be answered, namely will hardcore gamers default
to the Play, or still opt for a dedicated portable gaming console?
Will more casual gamers not be interested in the added bulk provided by
a dedicated slide-out controller? Hit the jump and find out!
Search engine giant Google Inc. has
announced that its Ann Arbor office in Michigan will embrace additional features
of a green building such as solar panels, a greenhouse, and a rooftop outdoor
green space.
The transformation is Google's next step towards
sustainability after it announced last month its $168 million solar energy
investment for a power plant in Mojave Desert, California, the Ivanpah Solar
Electric Generating System which will provide 6,000MW of wind power.
The
green transformation will set about this spring, turning Google's
employee-friendly office in southeast Michigan that was built in 2007 to be one
of the world's leaders in saving mother Earth.
At present the search
engine giant has existing green practices in place like recycling used papers,
using fluorescent lights, and composting foods at its cafe.
The
five-story McKinley Towne Centre that nests Google's main office in Michigan
will be equipped with an array of rooftop solar panels to turn light into
renewable energy.Detailed information on the causes of Hemorrhoids, Meanwhile, the
other portion of the building's roof has begun to turn into an outdoor green
space.
Moreover,A glass
bottle is a bottle created from glass. employees will start to have
comfortable time walking, biking, or riding a bus to work with the addition of
two new vehicles from Zipcar, a car-sharing service provider, waiting in the
parking area.
The green building's basement will also be turned into a
greenhouse from which grown vegetables Google's chef will use for the foods sold
in the cafe.
Mike Miller, head of Google's Ann Arbor office,The Leading
Wholesale pet supplies Distributor to
Independent Pet Retailers. said he seemed not to see the end of Google's
renewable energy promotion.
McKinley, the Ann Arbor landlord,is the 'solar panel revolution' upon us? and
Google Inc. has shared the costs of mounting the green building since the
inception of the idea in 2010 to make the office as green as they can.
Google and McKinley, however, refused to reveal the total costs incurred
in the green building project.
Albert Berriz, CEO of McKinley, projected
the project to take 9 to 11 years to recoup the overall expenditures, including
the installation of the solar panels that will supply part of Google's energy
consumption.
Google expects the green building project to attract
talents to its Michigan office. The search giant plans to expand its worldwide
workforce to more than 7,We specialize in providing third party merchant account.000 this year alone
after it had slowed in its hiring during the height of the economic crisis. The
planned hiring spree is dubbed as Google's biggest.
According to Google
spokesman Jake Parrillo, the search engine giant also plans to expand its 300
workforce in Michigan by more than 20% this year.
Google's other
offices, including those in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cambridge, Mass., have also
been seeing green transformation.
Piles of trees,
mixed with strips of tin and boards that once were part of houses churned up in
the April 27 tornado sit ready for pickup along the curbs in front of Pratt City
homes that are still liveable.
Several residents in those homes say the
piles are an ugly and annoying reminder of the horror that swept through nearly
a month ago.
"It looks like a war hit here,is the 'solar panel revolution' upon us? and we're
the only survivors," said Gywanna Williams, a resident on Lamplighter Circle.
"I'm very frustrated."
Williams sat Sunday in the basement garage of her
neighbor Susie Billingsley's home talking with Pratt City resident Olivia
McGaha. Williams and Billingsley are still living in their homes but McGaha is
temporarily living somewhere else because her home on nearby Lamplighter Lane
was severely damaged.
The three women talked about their love for their
neighborhood and the piles of debris in front of their homes.
"It's
frustrating, but not necessarily to the point of blaming (someone)," McGaha
said. "I know we're tired of it."
Billingsley said she was somewhat
frustrated. "I'm trying to be a little patient," she said.
Alabama
Gov.Detailed information on the causes of Hemorrhoids, Robert Bentley
wasn't as patient Friday. And he did find someone to blame.
The governor
scolded the city of Birmingham at a press conference, saying that city leaders
needed to get along, make some decisions, and get the debris removed.We
specialize in providing third party merchant
account.
At City Hall both the mayor and City Council have blamed
each other for the delay in mobilizing full-time cleanup crews.
"The
governor's comments are on point, and it shows how dysfunctional city government
is at this point because of a lack of communication," said Birmingham City
Council President Roderick Royal.
Meanwhile, Mayor William Bell this
weekend sent out 55 crews to damaged areas,The Leading Wholesale pet supplies Distributor to
Independent Pet Retailers. pleading he was escalating cleanup efforts. Crews
were out again on Sunday.
"I want the residents to know I won't wait on
others to move forward," Bell said in a statement, taking a jab at the council.
"This is not about politics; it is about rebuilding our community."
Council members say they are not against the cleanup but wanted more
information before releasing millions to private companies selected by Bell. The
debate could be resolved by Tuesday when the council votes on $10 million in
advance funding to begin work with three private companies in Bell's plan. Bell
said he would soon also recommend a fourth company to handle debris cleanup on
private property.
Pratt City residents on Sunday didn't point fingers of
blame in any particular direction. Most said they understand the sheer size of
the cleanup and the time it will take to rebuild their community.
"Everett 'Whooleo' Harris, who lives on Closhire Lane in the South
Hampton Estates area of Pratt City, was using a pole saw to cut up limbs in his
yard on Sunday.
Harris said he has seen Birmingham crews out working and
isn't frustrated, despite the pile in front of his house and his neighbor's
homes. "There's just so much of it,A glass bottle is a bottle created
from glass." he said.
McGaha agreed that the city has a huge task. "This
is massive," she said.
McGaha said she comes over to Pratt City every
day to visit with the few neighbors who didn't have to leave because their homes
weren't destroyed. She has lived in Pratt City since 1976.
McGaha wants
to see not just the cleanup of debris piles. She is more interested in seeing
work on getting Pratt City rebuilt and the return of its pulse -- the people.
"As great as the loss of the homes, you also lost the life of the
community; the people you routinely see every day: the postman, garbagemen, the
lawn mowers .. kids walking by to catch the (school) bus," McGaha said.