As the year draws to a close, the Portals and Rails team would like to share its own "Top 10" list of major payments-related events and issues that took place in the United States this year.

#10: Proposed prepaid rule. After a long wait, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its proposed rules on general reloadable prepaid cards in November. While the major players in the prepaid card industry had already adopted most of the practices included in the proposed rule, the proposal allowing overdrafts and credit extensions is likely to generate differing perspectives during the comment period before a final rule is adopted in 2015.

#9: Regulation II. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the Federal Reserve Bank's rules regarding interchange fees and network routing rules, reversing a 2013 decision. Notice of appeal on the interchange fee portion of the ruling has been given, but resolution of the network routing rules has cleared the way for the development of applications supporting routing on chip cards.

#8: Payment trends. The detailed Federal Reserve Bank's triennial payments study results were released in July 2014, continuing the Fed's 15-year history of conducting this comprehensive payments research. Cash usage continued to decline but remained the most-used form of payment in terms of transaction volume.

#7: Card-not-present (CNP) fraud. With the growing issuance of chip cards and the experience of other countries post-EMV migration—with substantial amounts of fraud moving to the online commerce environment—the payments industry continues to search for improved security solutions for CNP fraud that minimize customer friction and abandonment.

#6: Faster payments. Continuing a process it began in the fall of 2013 at the release of a consultative white paper, the Federal Reserve Bank held town halls and stakeholder meetings throughout the year in preparation of the release of its proposed roadmap towards improving the payment system.

#5: Virtual currencies. Every conference we attended had sessions or tracks focused on virtual currencies like Bitcoin. While there was some advancement in the acceptance of Bitcoin by major retailers, the number of consumers using the currency did not rise significantly.

#4: Mobile payments. The entry of Apple with its powerful brand identity into the mobile payments arena with Apple Pay has energized the mobile payments industry and brought improved payment security through tokenization and biometrics closer to the mainstream. (Apple Pay's impact on mobile payment transaction volume will likely be negligible for a couple of years.) Additionally, the use of host card emulation, or HCE, as an alternative contactless communications technology provides another option for mobile wallet development.

#3: EMV migration. The frequency and magnitude of the data breaches this year have spurred financial institutions and merchants alike into speeding up their support of EMV chip cards in advance of the October 2015 liability shift.

#2: Third-party processors. Regulators and law enforcement escalated the attention they were giving to the relationships of financial institutions with third-party processors because of increased concerns about deceitful business practices as well as money laundering.

And…drum roll, please!

#1: Data breaches. The waves of data breaches that started in late 2013 continued to grow throughout 2014 as more and more retailers revealed that their transaction and customer data had been compromised. The size and frequency of the data breaches provided renewed impetus to improve the security of our payments system through chip card migration and the implementation of tokenization.

How does this list compare to your Top 10?

All of us at the Retail Payments Risk Forum wish our Portals and Rails readers Happy Holidays and a prosperous and fraud-free 2015!

Photo of Mary Kepler Photo of Doug King Photo of David Lott Photo of Julius Weyman



Mary Kepler, vice president; Doug King, payments risk specialist; Dave Lott, payments risk expert; and Julius Weyman, vice president—all of the Atlanta Fed's Retail Payments Risk Forum.