June, 2025

• 1 June

  Payments 3.0: Tread Carefully in the Wake of the Prepaid Card Rule Wreckage

  

  Digital-wallet disclosures will change with the end of the long-running legal battle between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and PayPal. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the CFPB and PayPal filed a joint stipulation to end the Bureau’s appeal of a 2024 ruling that exempted PayPal from some of the disclosure …

May, 2025

• 1 May

  TSG: Stripe, Adyen, and Toast Gain Among Top Acquirers

  

  While the top 10 roster of the largest merchant acquirers in the TSG Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers shows little variation from last year—JPMorgan Chase & Co. is still No. 1 at $2.61 trillion in volume in 2024—smaller players are moving into the upper ranks. Adyen NV, a Netherlands-based processor …
• 1 May

  Security Notes: Accounting for the 21st Century

  

  When Luca Pacioli some 500 years ago pioneered the transition from single-entry to double-entry bookkeeping, the craft of accounting was jolted into new horizons. Industrial practice became so much smoother and better organized. We are looking today at a similar jolt emanating from the emerging technology of digital money. Computerized …
• 1 May

  Payments 3.0: Letters From the House Betoken a Regulatory Stance

  

  A series of letters from the House Financial Services Committee provides clues about how regulation may evolve in the new administration. The Republican member of the committee sent nine letters dated March 28 and March 31 to the heads and acting heads of a variety of agencies, including banking regulators, …

April, 2025

• 1 April

  Security Notes: Randomness Is Better Than Math

  

  We were all fascinated, and perhaps intimidated, in school when we learned Euclid’s geometry and the way he was able to prove statements and declare facts that exceeded human experience. Euclid did not draw all possible triangles to measure and verify that any and all triangles will have exactly 180 …
• 1 April

  Digital Wallets Win in the Senate—Now What?

  

  The U.S. Senate early last month voted 51-47 to scrub a regulation issued in November by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and aimed at mobile wallets and digital money transfers. The repeal legislation, which moved to the House of Representatives, comes as major payment-app developers like Apple Inc., Block Inc., …
• 1 April

  Payments 3.0: Reform—Don’t Eliminate—the CFPB

  

  After the election, many in the payments industry hoped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would be eliminated. While it does not seem like that will happen in the immediate future, the power of the Bureau has been curtailed. But where do things go from here? With its nomination of a …

March, 2025

• 1 March

  Payments 3.0: Get Set for the Mini CFPBs

  

  Will the states step into a regulatory gap left by the new Trump administration? In February, acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Russell Vought, director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, ordered the Bureau to close for a week and two senior officials resigned. The Department of …
• 1 March

  Security Notes: Tokenization: Money’s Road to Cyberspace

  

  As human civilization migrates to cyberspace, we run into a big problem. Unlike the migration of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land—where they took along all their belongings (however few they had)—cyberspace migration does not allow us to carry along our material assets. The gatekeepers are quite adamant …
• 1 March

  Fiserv Finds a Successor As CEO Bisignano Takes His Leave

  

  Fiserv Inc. late in January announced Michael P. Lyons will take over as chief executive at Fiserv Inc., replacing Frank Bisginano. Lyons, who is also taking on the office of president at the Milwaukee-based company, arrives from PNC Financial Services Group, a Fiserv client, where he was president and a …