Mobile payments and security will be two of the largest drivers for the payments industry in the near future, Robert Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, tells Mobile Marketing & Technology.
Carr points to the increasing investments made by various portions of the payments industry in mobile technology. Just this month, Chipotle announced it was going to spend $10 million to redesign its payments network to take advantage of the shift to mobile and Taco Bell launched its mobile payments app. More retailers, restaurants and others who haven’t already done so are expected to follow suit, as are payments firms like PayPal, venture capital companies, Google, Apple and several others.
As they make those investments in mobile payments, those firms will also continue to invest in the security of payments, particularly following the recent breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels, Carr says.
While some in the payments industry had questioned investing in EMV with the thought that it soon could be supplanted by newer technologies, those latest breaches have even many of these previous EMV skeptics advocating the chip card technology, according to Carr.
“These kinds of breaches are going to continue to happen with the older technology,” Carr says. “The bad guys know how to steal the numbers when they are in flight. EMV transactions also need to be encrypted so card data is not in the clear when in flight, and the technology to prevent this is available right now.”
While some retailers might object to the cost of installing EMV terminals, “it’s a lot bigger cost if you get breached,” Carr says.
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