According to this, when it comes to mobile adoption, the insurance and telecoms industries lag behind. However, the two industries are among the highest-ranked of those planning to add a mobile offering by the end of 2014.

"The same source unveils that mobile is already an increasingly important channel for merchants, with 86% of respondents declaring they will have mobile capabilities in place by the end of 2014. Moreover, almost two thirds (63%) already support mobile in some capacity and over half (55%) of merchants with annual revenues greater than USD 50 million currently offer a dedicated mobile website, while 66% support a mobile app for online shopping."

"Research also point out that the sectors most actively supporting mobile already are mass merchants (91%), gaming (82%) and books/music/video (76%). On the other hand, sectors that are not currently as mobile friendly are insurance (50%) and telecoms (63%), with merchants surveyed in these sectors still only in the planning stages of developing support specific for mobile."

According to this, Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode are by far the most widespread authentication solutions, with 80% of businesses which participate in at least one Consumer Authentication program using these methods.

"According to the 2014 Consumer Authentication Survey released by CardinalCommerce, at least 75% of issuers, gateways and card associations support Consumer Authentication programs. More than 66% of acquirers and payment service providers along with more than half of fraud vendors and ecommerce platforms also support Consumer Authentication."

"When it comes to merchants, the reports shows that almost half of those surveyed were merchants currently using Consumer Authentication. 90% of respondents who use a Consumer Authentication program believe the program is somewhat to highly valuable. Only 3% overall stated that Consumer Authentication has no value. 81% of merchants are happy with their Consumer Authentication solution. Additionally, for those that are using it already, once it is implemented as a technique in their program they tend to stick with it."

"Larger merchants are more likely to use Consumer Authentication. They are also the most likely to support Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. Amongst merchants with an annual revenue greater than USD 50 million, 93% support Verified by Visa and 83% MasterCard SecureCode. Smaller merchants are more likely to use alternative forms of authentication, such as e-mail verification or Google Authenticator."

"The survey mentions that amongst merchants currently not using Consumer Authentication, 20% are concerned with the effect it might have on sales conversion and 13% worry about changing the user experience. Almost 1/3 of respondents not using Consumer Authentication have concerns about its impact on users and conversion."

According to this, cybercriminals all over the world are trying harder than ever to acquire confidential user data and steal money from bank accounts by creating fake websites and web pages imitating financial organizations or internet resources.

"According to data from threat management solutions developer Kaspersky Lab, this fraudulent scheme, also knows as phishing, targeted more financial institutions in 2013, when the number of attacks on banking websites, online stores and e-payment systems increased to 31.45% from the 22.95% recorded in 2012."

"The same source unveils that in 2013, in the Philippines, banks were the most attractive targets, which accounted for 70.6 % of all financial phishing activities, a sharp increase from the 52% recorded in 2012. Overall, the number of phishing attacks targeting banks almost doubled from 11.92% in 2012 to 22.2% in 2013. On the other hand, the number of attacks on online stores increased insignificantly by 8.5 percentage points while those targeting payment systems dropped by 2.63 percentage points."

According to this, security experts have discovered an application which attempts to monitor communications on Android smartphones.

"The application, called iBanking, is able to spy on phone calls and SMSs on Android phones and tricks users into installing a fake Facebook application. Once installed, it demands a phone number so that hackers can take over a user's bank account."

"This bot is extremely invasive, because hackers are able to listen to calls been made, intercept SMS messages and even listen to private conversations."

"Some of the warning signs include the fact that the application is hosted on a third-party website and is riddled with spelling and grammar errors."

Startup writes: "Global payments giant Mastercard today announced the launch of a new retail accelerator, set to give a group of European start-ups the tools they need to achieve rapid growth."