This year Near Field Communication chips in cellular phones will take off. NFC chips will allow customers who use their cell phone to make credit card purchases at any business equipped with a PayPass reader. They are expected to boost the mobile payment business significantly. NFC technology will not only benefit in payment transaction and transportation, but also in health care. Patient treatment will be faster when they have a tag that is scanned, and their information is immediately transferred to the hospital or doctor’s database.

Read the full article here

Nathan Accounting Group & First Global welcomes Daniel Kaufman to the team!

The financial website, NerdWallet, has recently launched a prepaid debit card comparison tool. This new technology offers consumers side-by-side comparisons of prepaid debit cards with a clear understanding of each card’s cost.

The tool makes its recommendation from user input on things such as card and ATM use, reloads, and direct deposit and monthly loading to determine if the user is eligible for a discount. Consumers will have the ability to choose between pay-as-you-go and monthly fee plans, cards with and without direct deposit or load discounts, and monthly and transaction fee-heavy cards.

“Issuers now have no incentive to be honest and upfront about their fees. To ensure that consumers are treated fairly, we provide them with the best information possible and help them easily distinguish which card is best for their lifestyle,” says Tim Chen, CEO of NerdWallet.

Read the full article here

First Global wants to use this post to congratulate our client, Mitchell D. Weiss, on his recently published book Life Happens. The book will be available on Amazon, formatted for the Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble, formatted for the Nook, and will soon be available on iBooks for the iPad. Postings of upcoming interviews with Weiss will be on the books website, as well as Facebook, Google+and Twitter. Weiss’ blog posts can be found on his Tumblr.

Congratulations Mitchell on this exciting achievement!

You can find more information about Life Happens on Weiss’ website: http://www.mitchelldweiss.com/

Yesterday, January 18th, was a “blackout” day for some Internet sites that were protesting recent legislation bills; SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act. Websites such as Google had a black box over their name, in protest of proposed congressional legislation that they believe poses a threat to an open and free Internet. These sites, such as Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, believe that the two bills represent “damage”.

Under SOPA, for example, a single perceived violation could get an entire website shut down, or the cessation of payment processing or advertisement delivery to a website. If the finances are cut off, so is the site. For example, if a site like Etsy, a popular online marketplace, is forced to review every item put up for sale, the site no longer has an effective business model. With over 800,000 active “shops”, Etsy would not be able to monitor every single item put up for sale, and there may be some that violate U.S. copyright or trademark laws. Under SOPA, payment processors could be served with a notice that would require them to suspend Etsy’s service within 5 days.

Within the past week, support for SOPA and PIPA has evaporated, so it is quite clear which side is currently winning.

Read the full article here

MasterCard is bringing back virtual numbers and a linked app for mobile transactions. The company announced that the globalVCard and mobile payment plan will be out this spring.

“We think it’s timely because the U.S. is really starting to adopt alternative payment solutions, including mobile,” said a spokeswoman.

Consumers will be able to restrict the cards to a specific dollar amount, limit the number of transactions, and set an expiration date of up to 24 months. The cards will be usable at any location, even in stores.

Read the full article here

The only thing more convenient than replacing credit cards with a smartphone is replacing entire wallets with smartphones. Most of the cards you may keep in your wallet, such as a license, credit or debit card, company card, library card, or a transit pass, are only information holders. They can easily be replaced by an app on your smartphone that can handle the type of data on these cards.

There are many advantages of having an app for your wallet rather than having a wallet physically in your pocket. One advantage is if your smartphone is lost, you can log into your account and invalidate those accounts on that device and then transfer them to a new one.

Since the PIN number is not stored on a credit or debit card, and they do not do anything active to prove their identity, it is easy to replace them with an application that alerts you when you’ve reached balance limits. Cash could be handled as any other type of stored data, such as a transit pass. The balance data could be stored on the smartphone itself or transmitted to a server, as is the case with those prepaid debit and credit cards. 

A disadvantage of a mobile wallet would be keeping a driver’s licenses and other government IDs on a smartphone.  These need to be in a provably unique, untampered form. That likely means tying them physically to a smartphone, which  makes it a hassle to update your device every few years as manufacturers and carriers want you to. Keeping your smartphone’s battery alive in a time when you need it to serve not only as your phone, but as your wallet, will be an issue as well. What if your phone died and you needed to show proof of identification to someone?

These are examples of areas that would need to be worked out before the mobile wallet can become the future of wallets. Even with disadvantages however, there is a good chance we will be abandoning the folded leather contraption in our pockets one day.

Read the full article here .

Shoppers beware of the credit card and debit card threat known as ‘skimming’. A skimmer is an electronic device used to swipe and store information from the magnetic strip of a card at an ATM, while a hidden camera reads the users’ PIN number.

“I would hesitate to say it is on the increase, but we have definitely seen cases of this,” said Roy Sexton, Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service’s in Birmingham, Alabama.

Skimming devices are not only used at ATMs, they can also be used at gas pumps. These skimmers can be made to mimic legitimate card readers, or be placed inside the machines so consumers don’t know if their cards are being hacked. They usually don’t even notice they are missing money until they have looked at their card statements, which is too late since the devices are only installed for a few hours.

More than 3 million people have been victims of skimming, losing an average of $1000 per person, according to the ADT Security website. If you are skimmed, your bank WILL repay you immediately, but it is still a hassle. The best way to avoid being ‘skimmed’ is to quickly observe the ATM or gas pump device you will be using to scan your card.

“When you approach an outdoor ATM, give it a quick inspection to make sure nothing looks out of place; that the faceplate looks as it’s supposed to look,” Sexton said. “It sounds kind of corny, but the other thing I always recommend is, when you’re working with an outdoor ATM, make it a two-hand operation. Slide your card in and when you go to punch in your PIN number, cover with your other hand; that way, it prevents the pin-hole camera from recording your PIN”.

Read the full article here

$340 billion is the amount that small businesses were paying in unnecessary credit card processing fees after Black Friday. During the busiest shopping weekend of the year, a record of 226 million shoppers spent an average of $398.62 per person. About 26% of these sales went to small businesses, with most consumers paying with credit cards. Small business owners pay an average of 2.65% to process credit cards, when the percentage should be 2%. While trying to be careful during a recession, small business owners took a big hit during this holiday season with these fees.

Read the article here