Law and Regulation

Issuers signing up to have their cards included in the Apple Pay wallet may benefit from all the hype Apple Inc. is generating for the new mobile-payment service. But behind the scenes, the 500 or so financial institutions that have enlisted in the program so far are also signing up …

By Jim Daly President Barack Obama on Friday signed an executive order committing the federal government to offer and accept Europay-MasterCard-Visa- (EMV) chip cards. A retailer trade group quickly praised Obama for endorsing the chip-and-PIN variety of EMV when others in the payment card industry would make do with chip-and-signature …

By Jim Daly Average out-of-network ATM fees set a record in 2014 for the eighth straight year by rising 5.3% to $4.35 per transaction, well above a 1.5% increase in 2013 but close to their 17-year average, according to Bankrate Inc.’s annual study of checking-account fees. Overdraft fees set a …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s announcement this week that it will be offering checking accounts to consumers through Green Dot Corp.’s GoBank mobile-banking services reopened old fissures between banks and non-banking companies over offering financial services to consumers, fissures that radiate out to the topic of payments security. At the Federal Reserve …

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday said it would leave its debit card interchange cap for large issuers unchanged despite finding that some of their important expenses either declined last year or had changed little from levels found by an earlier survey. A major retailer trade group said the findings …

The spat between Mitek Systems Inc. and USAA Federal Savings Bank over remote deposit capture software is set for trial Sept. 8, but the trial won’t include Mitek’s patent-infringement allegations that had been a key part of the case. In other payments-related legal action, four retail trade groups and two …

Defending the federal government’s guidance for providing financial services to legal marijuana businesses, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official on Tuesday said more than 100 banks and credit unions are now working with cannabis-industry customers. One consultant who connects banks with marijuana merchants confirms that financial-institution interest in the budding …

Already eyed with suspicion by various arms of the federal government and states, virtual currencies now are the subject of a warning issued Monday by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB released a six-page advisory about the risks consumers face when using new forms of electronic money. “Virtual …

Four regional automated clearing house associations in the South will merge Jan. 1 under the name of PaymentsFirst Inc. The merger may be the biggest one yet among regional ACH associations in terms of participants and furthers the long-standing trend of smaller, mostly state-based ACH organizations pooling their resources as …

The ATM Industry Association met today with members of the Federal Reserve staff to discuss making ATM debit transactions subject to the routing requirements of the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The association, which represents ATM independent sales organizations and other retail deployers, wants the provision because it …