Law and Regulation

A top executive at Coinbase Global Inc. said Friday the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn an enforcement action against the cryptocurrency platform, a move the executive lauded as a “victory not just for Coinbase, but for our customers, the United States, and individual freedom.” “We’ve always maintained that we …

A subdued Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to emerge in the wake of the order issued over the weekend to close its offices for the week and have employees work remotely during that period. Acting CFPB director Russell Vought, director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, …

U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendell extended the injunction against Illinois’s pending interchange law late Thursday to include more financial institutions but stopped short of providing blanket relief from the law for all financial institutions and the card networks. Kendall, a judge in the Northern District of Illinois, ruled that …

Thanks to criminals’ increasing adoption of artificial intelligence, cyberfraud rose 14% in 2024, according to a report from Trustpair, a provider of fraud-prevention technology. Overall, 90% of U.S. companies were targeted by cyber fraud the past year, compared to 79% in 2023. The increase is being driven by criminals’ use …

In reconnecting with the payments industry after my Congressional run, one topic has come up in conversation more than any other: interchange regulations. Specifically, S.1838, the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023 (CCCA), which takes a market-driven approach to driving down interchange fees.  By enabling two credit card networks on …

Bluefin said it will offer point-to-point encryption capability for the event-management platforms Event Guru and Registration Guru. AstroPay, a Brazil-based cross-border payments fintech, said it has been granted a payment-institution license by the Central Bank of Brazil. Magwitch, a lending-as-a-service platform, has integrated real-time point-of-sale lending technology from U.S. Bank Avvance. …

Despite many financial institutions lagging behind when it comes to the adoption of full send-and-receive capabilities for real-time payments, that trend is expected to reverse itself starting in 2025, says a report from Q2 Holdings Inc., a provider of digital-banking solutions. As more financial institutions add full send/receive capabilities for …

Same-day ACH payment volume topped 1.2 billion payments in 2024, said Nacha, the automated clearing house rule maker, and was valued at $3.2 trillion. Nacha said same-day ACH volume increased 45.3% from 2023 to 2024. Overall, ACH Network payment volume rose 6.7% from 2023 to 2024, to 33.6 billion payments in …

A bill was introduced late Tuesday in the Illinois House of Representatives seeking to repeal the Interchange Fee Prohibition Act. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Margaret Croke, chairperson of the House Financial Institutions and Licensing Committee, is the latest twist in an ongoing battle over the IFPA, which became law …

2024 was the year of the mega-data breach, with six breaches accounting for 85%, or 1.4 billion, of the 1.7 billion breach notices sent to victims in 2024. That’s according to The Identity Theft Resources Center’s annual Data Breach report, released early Tuesday. At least 100 million breach notices were …