Payment Cards - Consult Hyperion

Big Tech, Financial Data … and resilience for critical infrastructure

17th September 202117th September 2021by Neil McEvoyLeave a comment

Victoria Saporta, BoE executive director for prudential supervision, has said recently that minimum resilience requirements should be required for the tech giants’ (and others’) hosting services, before they may process and store banking data. We strongly support these comments. We have identified this issue as one of a number of new risks arising from modern financial systems architecture, in recent Structured Risk Analyses that we have carried out for financial and retail organisations in North America, Asia-Pac and EMEA.

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The changing face of payments

9th August 20213rd September 2021by Tim Richards1 Comment

EMV is at the heart of global payment card processing. As a specification it governs the processing of billions of transactions globally, with the vast majority of those flowing through the international payment schemes. As a technology it has been incredibly successful, reducing fraud levels everywhere it’s been introduced and its extension into contactless payments is now the fastest growing area of face-to-face payments. The idea that EMV might soon be obsolescent seems far-fetched, to put it mildly, but there are reasons to believe that its hegemony is under threat.

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So, you want to be a card issuer?

3rd August 20213rd September 2021by Ian PrinceLeave a comment

Card issuing seems to be hot right now. Despite the rise of alternatives to card payments, many Fintech’s appear intent on adding payment cards to their product portfolios. And it is not just the “me too” start-up banks.

For example, some international remittance services are adding payment cards to their offerings. This allows customers to spend the money they receive directly but also means that customers do not withdraw funds immediately upon receipt. This extends the customer relationship adding value to both the customer and the Fintech.

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On Mondex and CBDCs (again)

30th July 20213rd September 2021by Tim RichardsLeave a comment

Introduction

We were delighted to get a lot of good feedback on Neil’s previous blog on Mondex Memories and CBDCs and its relevance to CBDCs and thought it would be interesting to respond to some of the more interesting – and difficult – points raised in a follow-up blog. Before addressing those I wanted to put the Mondex program into some historical context. They were very different days – we didn’t have an intranet until 1996, let alone internet access. There were no SDKs – although actually we did build a precursor to one of those – or APIs and the idea of remote payments was still in its infancy (although we did that too).

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Mondex Memories and CBDC

13th July 20213rd September 2021by Neil McEvoyLeave a comment

Deep in the mists of time (that is to say, the early-1990s), I led the team from Consult Hyperion responsible for Mondex specification, design and development. For those not familiar with paleo-payments, it was one of a clutch of (contact) smart card based electronic cash systems, none of which survived beyond, let’s say, early adolescence. There were two main reasons for their demise, one technological and one business. The concept was ahead of the capabilities of the underlying technology. Transactions took about the same amount of time as cash plus change, which wasn’t a compelling reason for anyone to leave their wallet behind. The promoters of the schemes (retail banks and payment brands) did not target particular niches where there may have been a business case (I always thought car parking might work) but instead blanketed retail outlets in particular cities or small countries. So, mostly unused devices were put under the counter, and people forgot about the schemes after an initial blaze of publicity.

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Request to Pay’s Grand Tour

14th June 202114th June 2021by GuestLeave a comment

Earlier this year we were delighted to be part of the Consult Hyperion webinar on Request to Pay. A common thread in post-event conversations that followed was an interest in the parallel developments of the UK and European flavours of Request to Pay and how they might work together. With the launch of the European version on June 15^th, we thought it an ideal time to signpost the bigger differences.

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Chip and PIN? Remember that?

12th February 202112th February 2021by David G.W. BirchLeave a comment

This weekend marks an anniversary. Although Consult Hyperion’s romance with smart cards had started many years before that, it will be fifteen years on Sunday that chip and PIN went live in the UK. I remember St. Valentine’s Day 2006 as if it was yesterday!

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Will Brexit make stealing bank cards attractive again?

2nd February 20212nd February 2021by Gary Munro2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece for our friends at Smartex; ‘Brexit and the UK Finance’s proposed £100 contactless limit’. Perhaps a title more worthy of grabbing readers would be ‘Will Brexit make stealing bank cards attractive again?’

The pandemic has accelerated consumer behaviour that has been teetering for the last decade. The desire for contact-free (and therefore contactless) transactions, has meant a significant trend in consumers becoming comfortable with tapping their cards and perhaps more interestingly, their phones (devices/wearables). We’ve seen merchants switch from hand scribbled ‘cash only’ signs, to ‘please use cards (devices etc) wherever possible’. Some stores have completely rejected cash altogether.

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Future-Ready Payments Processing

17th November 202024th November 2020by Gary MunroLeave a comment

Payment Processing Platforms

At Consult Hyperion we spend a lot of our time looking into payments processing platforms for our clients. Over recent months we’ve delivered;

technical due diligence, assessing their capabilities
security and vulnerability analysis on networks and products
designed fundamental security architectures for new payments solutions
advised clients on the selection of payment platform solutions
and helped design new platforms or extended the capability of their existing platforms

It’s fair to say we have a comprehensive understanding of payments processing. The products and solutions offered by Fintechs, Banks, Neobanks etc. rely on the capabilities of the underlying payments platform(s).

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Contact-free public transport (Part 3)

21st October 202021st October 2020by John ElliottLeave a comment

This is the third of three blogs about technologies to support contact-free use of public transport.

The radio again – I hear that the Transport Minister for England had just reported that there have been fewer than 400 fines for people failed to wear face covering on public transport. More than 115,000 travellers have been stopped and reminded that face coverings are mandatory, and 9,500 people prevented from travelling.

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