Camping World (CWI, Inc.)

New York -- The National Retail Federation on late Tuesday sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner that called for replacing the magnetic-strip credit and debit cards that are widely used throughout the United States with chip-based cards that store data in an embedded computer micro-chip and require the use of a PIN rather than a signature. The chip-based cards are widely used in Europe, Asia and Africa.

In a letter to congressional leaders, the National Retail Federation underscored the retail industry’s commitment to protecting sensitive consumer data in the wake of the recent international cyber attacks and thefts.

New York -- Neiman Marcus Group on Thursday posted a statement on its website in which it said that, to its knowledge, customers' Social Security numbers and birthdates were not stolen during its holiday security breach. Last week, the retailer revealed that some of customers' payment information had been stolen and that the thieves had made unauthorized charges.

Atlanta -- First Data Corp., in its SpendTrend analysis for December, reported that dollar volume grew 6.1%, which marked a significant spike compared to November’s growth of 4.4% as holiday shoppers were out in full force with no time to procrastinate due to the shortened holiday shopping season.

SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly four million U.S. merchant locations serviced by First Data.

New York -- VeriFone Systems announced that The Jones Group Inc. has selected VeriFone solutions to enable mobile payment acceptance and enhance customer experience for its internationally recognized brands, including Jones New York and Nine West.

VeriFone will upgrade the brands’ payment environments with its PAYware Mobile e210 mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solution and the MX 915, an NFC-enabled, multi-media payment terminal.
 

Mobile point of sale (mPOS) technology promises to continue to transform the customer’s shopping experience in 2014 and beyond. Gartner forecasts an mPOS market valued at $617 billion with 448 million users by the end of 2016, representing 42% annual growth.

Retail is one of several sectors poised to benefit from mPOS. With that in mind, here are five trends that every retailer needs to be aware of in the space.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. admitted Friday that “strongly encrypted PIN data” was removed during the hacking that compromised some 40 million credit- and debit-card accounts between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. The retailer said it remains “confident” that customers’ PIN numbers are safe and secure.

Pin, share, Tweet will join sit, stay, come at the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship when Procter & Gamble introduces cutting-edge social capabilities to the top dog show.

The entire event scheduled for December 13-15 in Orlando will be live streamed which gives those who visit Live.Eukanuba.com the opportunity to virtually sit ringside. However, where things get interesting is with the addition of interactive features to the live streaming that will allow viewers to immediately chat, share, Pin, post and Tweet with the click of a button.