Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Jim Daly Processors accused by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last month of aiding allegedly fraudulent debt collectors by providing them with payments services are beginning to file their answers to the federal charges. At least one of them is accusing the CFPB of “regulatory overreach” in the style …
Read More »With Ripple’s Settlement, the Feds Send a Message to Cryptocurrency Providers
By Jim Daly The federal government sent a message Tuesday that the new virtual-currency providers are subject to the same regulations as long-established money-transfer firms when it announced that Ripple Labs Inc. would pay a $700,000 civil penalty and take remedial actions in lieu of criminal prosecution. The announcements came …
Read More »Research Shows How Durbin Torpedoed Visa And MasterCard’s PIN Debit Traffic
By John Stewart The Durbin Amendment’s transaction-routing requirements, which have been in effect now for three years, are widely thought to have benefited merchants by increasing competition for debit card traffic. But PIN debit networks that aren’t owned by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. were expected to benefit as well …
Read More »Will Increasing Regulation of the Acquiring Industry Abroad Affect the U.S. Market?
By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …
Read More »The Canadian Government Updates Its Code of Conduct for the Payments Industry
By Jim Daly Canada’s Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, on Monday issued an update to the government’s 5-year-old Code of Conduct for the credit and debit card industry. The update adds consumer protections, addresses the growth of mobile payments and premium cards, and makes other changes intended to give merchants more …
Read More »PayPal Says a CFPB Lawsuit Over Its Credit Products Could be Imminent
By Jim Daly PayPal Inc. says the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might sue it over its credit products by June 30. The possible lawsuit would stem from an investigation dating to 2013, when the CFPB in August of that year filed so-called civil investigative demands (CIDs) for documents, testimony …
Read More »Acquirers, ISOs Accused in CFPB Lawsuit Against Alleged Debt-Collection Scammers
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau named four merchant-acquiring companies as defendants in a lawsuit against six people and their associated debt-collection companies that allegedly attempted to collect millions of dollars in so-called “phantom debts” from consumers that the consumers either did not owe or were not owed to the debt …
Read More »An AmEx Appeal Likely as Network, DoJ Still Far Apart on Anti-Steering Rules
American Express Co. and the U.S. Department of Justice submitted proposals Monday for rules changes conforming to a federal judge’s ruling that AmEx’s current ban on merchants steering customers to cheaper forms of payment violates antitrust law. The proposals show the two sides remain far apart, and AmEx reiterated that …
Read More »Analyst: Target Settlement Signals a Change in How the Courts View Data Breaches
By Jim Daly Target Corp.’s $10 million settlement of a consumer class action stemming from its late-2013 data breach is significant not only because of its size, but also because it signals that courts are becoming more attentive to the harm consumers suffer from data breaches even if the payment …
Read More »Pot Payments Piteously Poor in an Otherwise Smokin’ Industry
By Jim Daly Legal U.S. marijuana sales grew 74% to $2.7 billion in 2014 from $1.5 billion the year before, but you wouldn’t know it by the payment card and other electronic payments generated by the budding industry, according to a new research report. Even though about 20 states have …
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