June, 2023

• 1 June

  Security Notes: A New Language for Money

  

  The alphabet of money used to be the various coins that were put together to make a financial statement. Or similarly, the various denominations of bank notes that were bound to express a given sum. And then we invented computers, and a new language for money came forth. Money was …

May, 2023

• 1 May

  Payments 3.0: Start Thinking About Consumer Protection

  

  The battle over the role—and even the existence—of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will heat up this fall, but the future of the Bureau, and of financial regulations, will hang in the balance for a few years. The financial-services industry may applaud the recent pushback against the regulators, but this …
• 1 May

  Will Visa’s 3% Surcharge Cap Boost Cash Discounts?

  

  On April 15, Visa Inc. lowered the amount a merchant can surcharge for transactions on its credit cards from a maximum of 4% to 3%, a move it had announced early this year. Merchants that want to surcharge will have no option but to comply with the 3% cap, says …
• 1 May

  Security Notes: Banks Are Changing Before our Eyes

  

  Since their inception, banks have offered two categories of services: a place to put money, and a means to grow money. Banks thrived because there was no viable alternative to their offer to safeguard our cash holdings. It is still true today, but not for long. Bankers I talk to …

April, 2023

• 1 April

  Mercedes Turns the Car into a Payment Device

  

  Mercedes-Benz’s new Mercedes pay+ in-car payment service is coming to five models manufactured by the German luxury-car maker. Though earlier efforts from a variety of car makers put in-car payments on the road, Mercedes-Benz is the first, with its Mercedes pay+ technology, to use Visa Inc.’s Delegated Authentication and Cloud …
• 1 April

  Security Notes: Recovery: The Foundation of Progress

  

  Biologists point out that Darwinian evolution was so spectacularly successful not because of exceptional wisdom going forward, but on account of a robust means of recovery. Countless errors and myriad missteps were followed by effective recovery, so the process was ready to try again. Indeed, recovery is the silent foundation …
• 1 April

  Payments 3.0: Prepaid Cards, State Aid, And the CFPB

  

  Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an “Issue Spotlight” on government benefits that attacked the use of prepaid cards for delivering state benefits. The agency cited what it sees as a lack of choice for consumers, inadequate customer service, and, of course, fees. “In 2020, for example, issuers …

March, 2023

• 1 March

  Payments 3.0: How to Regulate Earned Wage Access

  

  The earned-wage access (EWA) industry is at an inflection point, and regulators and legislators will need to think holistically to avoid hurting working Americans. EWA refers to products that enable workers to access a portion of their earnings independently of their pay cycle. So, rather than waiting for a paycheck …
• 1 March

  FIS Unwinds Its $43-Billion Worldpay Deal

  

  In the summer of 2019, the giant processor FIS Inc. massively expanded its merchant-acquiring business with its deal for Worldpay. The $43-billion acquisition was supposed to hand FIS a huge advantage in economies of scale and let it leapfrog rivals like Fiserv Inc., which itself had just completed a $22-billion …
• 1 March

  Security Notes: A Renaissance for Physical Cash

  

  If you look beyond the horizon, you’ll see that physical money is gearing up for a roaring comeback. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is the stubborn requirement for the newly designed central bank digital currencies: the requirement of trading continuity. A material coin does not vanish …