Law and Regulation

Several organizations representing banks and credit unions filed a lawsuit late Thursday challenging Illinois’s Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which was signed into law June 7. The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, was brought by the Illinois Bankers Association, The American Bankers Association, …

U.S. third-party developers soon will have new capabilities to access the secure element piece of Apple Inc.’s iPhone when iOS 18.1 eventually is released, a move that could herald further app development and cement Apple’s position among mobile-wallet providers. Apple, without fanfare, revealed this long-desired access Thursday in a simple …

Merchants were granted a second extension late Tuesday for filing claims against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. in their ongoing class-action lawsuit against the two networks over interchange costs. U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York Margo K. Brodie, who is presiding over the case, moved …

The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. has begun work on a new QR code payments standard. The goal is to establish the content of a QR code for payments, emphasize interoperability, and include both merchant-presented and consumer-presented QR codes. X9 said the standard is needed to accelerate the adoption of instant payments. Block …

Payments has always been an acquisitive business, as economies of scale loom large for CEOs and CFOs and buying that scale can often look cheaper and quicker than building it over time. But so far, activity in 2024 is mapping to what was seen last year—which is to say, slow. …

Merchants’ disdain for interchange is well documented, but one aspect of card-acceptance costs that gets drowned out by the outcry over interchange is that rising processing fees are hitting merchants harder than interchange hikes, according to some observers. Processors’ rate hikes have been running between 0.25% and 1.5% in recent …

Mastercard Inc.’s chief executive early Wednesday deplored the recent collapse of a key interchange settlement and highlighted the card company’s rapid progress in tokenization, a key technology that masks actual card data from potential cyberthieves. Pointing to a U.S. District Court judge’s rejection last month of an agreement between merchants and …

Value-added resellers and independent software vendors enticed by the attractiveness of surcharging and cash-discount programs find there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for enrolling merchants. Questions about the programs abound at RetailNow 2024, the annual conference sponsored by the Retail Solutions Providers Association and in progress this week in Las Vegas. The …

AppBrilliance said it is extending real-time payments to funding of closed-loop digital wallets via a recent rule change by The Clearing House Payments Co. The move will allow providers such as Starbucks, Dunkin’, and Chick-fil-A to use real-time rails for their proprietary wallets, the company says. ZeroTier, which provides connectivity between …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a report highlighting what the agency calls “junk fees” charged by processors when parents add money to students’ school-lunch accounts. Such fees cost families upwards of $100 million a year, according to the CFPB. In its study, the CFPB found that, on average, …