The Merchant Advisory Group (MAG) has announced a high-level set of policy and technology recommendations for changing how U.S. payment systems work. "This 'Mobile Road-map' will be submitted to stakeholder groups in the payments business to help them understand merchant needs and preferences in transitioning to more secure and efficient transacting—especially with mobile devices."

The position paper is here (PDF). The key take away is the group endorses widespread use of Chip & PIN in the U.S.

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "The Economics of Debit Acquiring". The report "provides an overview of the costs associated with enabling merchants to accept debit cards for payment. This report evaluates EFT network pricing trends and provides an in-depth analysis on the implications these trends will have on acquirers. This report also offers the U.S. market share for the top companies in payment acquiring, discusses ways in which share can be measured, and analyzes PIN debit's role in skewing market share depending on which metric is used."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report, End-to-End Encryption: The Acquiring Side Responds to Data Loss and PCI Compliance that "explores end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in the hands of merchants, payment service providers and processors. In the face of the three bogies of PCI DSS compliance and penalties, reputational risk and direct financial loss, the acquiring half of the payments process is evaluating options for eliminating cleartext cardholder data from their systems. Tokenization (the subject of a recent Mercator report) and end-to-end encryption are the leading candidates. This report examines the complexity of E2EE within payments and enterprise security." READ MORE »

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "Retail Credit Cards: New Interest In An Old Topic" that "examines the venerable world of private label and co-branded retailer credit cards, and the market forces that are shaping this segment. The vast majority of retailers have turned their programs over to third party issuers, but these retailers' interest in payments as a sales enabler and relationship building tools have never been higher. And with more payment vehicles and providers at their disposal, retailers increasingly focus on developing their optimal payments strategy." READ MORE »

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Merchant Acquiring in the United States 2008: Birth of the Perfect Storm". Mercator talks about three major events influencing the US merchant acquiring business: 1) Legislation - interchange legislation being considered in Congress, 2) Dissolution - the split of Chase Paymentech between First Data Corp. and JP Morgan Chase, and 3) Recession - the potential effects of a slowdown in the US economy.

The Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "US Mobile Banking: Sedate Growth, Disruptive Potential". According to Mercator, "mobile banking will be a disruptive force for smart FIs willing to tailor their message to specific demographics. Otherwise, mobile banking is in danger of becoming "yet another" convenience feature leaving the broad flank of the FI community exposed to more nimble players wielding mobile-enabled alternatives. A mobile-enabled decoupled platform is just one possibility." READ MORE »

The Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "The Evolving Landscape for Prepaid Cards in Latin America and Europe".

The Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Restricted Authorization Networks: Winner Takes All" by Tim Sloane, Director of Mercator's Prepaid Advisory Service. The report explores "how merchants and others can bring Prepaid Cards and Debit Cards to market, funded by Decoupled Debit and other mechanisms, to help consumers better manage their expenses and deliver meaningful savings - and therefore addressing this growing consumer demand. But most importantly, this report identifies how Restricted Authorization Networks can control how these cards are used in ways that were never before possible."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Roadmap to Profit's in China's Credit Card Issuing Market" that provides both qualitative and quantitative analyses on the profitability of China's credit card issuing market.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced its latest report titled "Mobile Financial Services Security: A New Ecosystem at Risk."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Prepaid Market Forecasts 2007 to 2010" that provides "a forecast of growth for all 33 Prepaid Market Segments" including the load volumes and cards issued.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "Decoupled Debit - Let's Take a Closer Look" that the company says "evaluates the recent emergence of this new and possibly disruptive technology in the financial services industry, decoupled debit. Decoupled debit is an alternative based ACH debit card solution that utilizes two existing systems that are well defined in the financial services industry but were not designed to work in combination with each other, the ACH network and the branded payment networks such as MasterCard, Visa, NYCE, etc."

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "Small Business Credit Card 2007 Update: Competition for Segments Intensifies" that examines recent developments in the highly competitive small business credit card marketplace.

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Account-Level Processing: Taking a Swipe at Payment and Loyalty Convergence". "The report focuses on Account-Level Processing (ALP), alternately known as Account-Level Management (ALM), which has the potential to revolutionize the payments landscape by optimizing the value that inherently exists within the data created by card-based electronic payments, thereby fundamentally changing the way consumers and merchants transact, as well as the way the general card payment services industry functions."

Mercator Advisory Group has announced its 4th Annual Prepaid Closed Loop Market Assessment, "documenting the spending, growth, and market dynamics for all Closed Loop Prepaid Solutions in 12 Categories and 33 Market Segments from 2003 through 2006."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "The Global and US POS Market: Forecasts and Futures" that reviews global and regional POS terminal shipments and approximate revenues and looks at the future role of POS terminals in the payment ecosystem.

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Alternative Payment Services: Moving into Traditional Payment Territory" that offers "an in-depth look at the principle providers of alternative payment services" and "examines the payment modalities supported by these alternative payment services and the consumer demographics they appeal to."

The Mercatory Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Business Models and Revenue Streams in Merchant Acquiring: Beyond the Monthly Residual Check" that "focuses on the state of the acquiring market & discusses the market strategy of the industry's most successful players."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "The ATM Turns 40 - Time For a Change" that "evaluates the current ATM environment and the value chain of participants as it exists today and the future of this ubiquitous self-service device."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Global EMV Migration Update: Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America" that discusses the shift from relatively vulnerable magnetic stripe payment cards to more secure microprocessor-based smart cards in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America regions. The report provides an overview of the state of the payment card market for each region, an analysis of the business case for EMV migration projects, and the progress of these projects.

Mercator Advisory Group has released a new report titled "HSA Growth Accelerates In Uncharted Waters" that discusses the significant investments being made to implement Prepaid HSA cards that will provide significant benefits to cardholders and Third Party Administrators.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "Online and Mobile Digital Content Markets" that it says "frames the challenges and opportunities posed by digital content across multiple distribution channels and as advertising or paid content."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report on the plans for the Canadian payment card market to migrate to EMV chip cards over the next few years.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a teleconference titled "U.S. Mobile Banking and Payments: Finding the Seams, Accelerating the Pace" - scheduled for Friday, June 1, beginning at 1 PM Eastern.

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report that "evaluates the changes that have occurred in the Debit Reward marketplace in the last year by comparing the state of the debit reward programs at the top fifty debit card issuers (in annual card holder spending) today as compared to more than a year ago."

Mercator Advisory Group has announced the availability of a new report titled "U.S. B2B Payments: State of the Market." According to Mercator, this report "delivers a B2B payments growth forecast, an overview of Business-to-Business (B2B) payments, how businesses communicate their payments and information, major payments network basics, and leading bank processors."

Mercator Advisory Group has announced its latest report, Solving the Micropayment Problem, Online and at the Point of Sale, that reviews "both the history and challenges of electronic micropayments and examines how the existing rails have evolved to address under $5 electronic payments at both the point of sale and for online transactions."

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Smart Cards and Healthcare: An Opportunity For Payments".

Mercator Advisory Group has announced its latest report, "US Mobile Banking And Payments: Finding The Seams, Accelerating The Pace." According to Mercator, the report "reviews the recent upswing in mobile banking initiatives and mobile payments pilots as well as the drivers behind this charge, examines preconditions for mobile success, key technology advances that make success far more likely than in the past and, most important, examines the business models that have emerged to engage the participation of ALL members of the mobile ecosystem: banks, mobile operators, vendors, and payment network operators."

Mercator Advisory Group has announced an update on anti-money laundering (AML) activity titled "Moving Toward The 'Total Mix'." According to Mercator, this report examines the growing FI-wide approach to AML as well as trends in compliance enforcement, suspicious activity reporting for 2006 and AML vendor consolidation. The report focuses in particular on the markets for and vendors of AML technologies addressing the small and
mid-market banking segments.