The Federal Reserve Board said Thursday that it is seeking comments about its proposal to adopt the ISO 20022 messaging format for the Fedwire Funds Service. If approved, the format would replace the Fedwire’s current, proprietary messaging system. ISO 20022 enables payment providers to add more detailed instructions and other …
Read More »Strong Profit Predictions Propel Payment-Processor Stocks in 2018’s First Half
Shares of publicly traded electronic transaction processors handily beat the leading stock-market indexes in June, the second quarter, and 2018’s first half, according to an analysis from Barrington Research. In the first half, 28 payments-industry stocks posted a mean return of 15.62%, handily beating the Nasdaq Composite Index’s return of …
Read More »Despite Growth in Mobile and Online Payments, Longstanding Payment Patterns Persist
The latest findings from a long-running survey of consumers’ payment choices show that new technology is driving a growing number of transactions, but overall usage patterns for credit cards, debit cards, and cash remain stable. The simultaneously released 2016 and 2017 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice from the Federal Reserve …
Read More »Big Credit Card Interchange Case Could Be Nearing a Settlement
A massive, 13-year-old legal case pitting merchants against the bank card networks and big issuers over credit card interchange could be nearing a settlement, according to regulatory filings and press reports. Mastercard disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday that negotiations among the parties are moving along and …
Read More »Equifax Agrees to Operational Changes in Its Data-Breach Agreement With Eight States
Equifax Inc. disclosed Wednesday that it has entered into a consent order with eight states that requires it to improve its data-protection practices in the wake of the huge data breach last year at the national credit-reporting agency. The breach compromised personal data on approximately 148 million consumers, including Social …
Read More »The Supreme Court’s Controversial Balancing Act in the AmEx Anti-Steering Case
With its Monday decision upholding American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules, the U.S. Supreme Court unleashed a tide of press speculation about just how payment card pricing, rewards, and network rules will be affected. At this point, however, only a few things are clear. The first is that AmEx chief executive …
Read More »A Divided Supreme Court Upholds AmEx’s Anti-Steering Rules
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that American Express Co.’s anti-steering rules for merchants do not violate federal antitrust law. The conservative majority’s decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, caps a case that dates back to 2010 and involves merchants who wanted to steer merchants to …
Read More »Eye on Contactless: Mobeewave Eyes Small Canadian Merchants; U.K. Payments Double
Canadian fintech Mobeewave could see its contactless-payment service for Samsung smart phones expand thanks to a new agreement with National Bank of Canada. And this week a British financial trade group announced that contactless payments in the United Kingdom jumped 97% in 2017. Dubbed National Bank Easy Pay, the service …
Read More »PayPal Opens Its Wallet Again, This Time To Buy Hyperwallet for $400 Million
Its pending $2.2 billion acquisition of Sweden’s iZettle still awaits final approval, but that didn’t stop PayPal Holdings Inc. from announcing late Tuesday that it has a deal to buy payout provider Hyperwallet for $400 million in cash. San Francisco-based Hyperwallet is an international specialist in provisioning payments, commissions, and …
Read More »Survey Identifies Emerging Anti-Fraud Tools Favored by E-Commerce Merchants
The fraud-fighting tools of the future for e-commerce retailers include artificial intelligence, multimerchant velocity checks, and fingerprint identification, according to a poll of 166 merchants for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. None of those newer tools is in widespread use today, but more merchants plan to use them going …
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