Law and Regulation

With the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service having debuted in July last year and The Clearing House Payments Co.’s  RTP network in operation since 2017, just how soon can the U.S. payments industry expect widespread, routine exchange of real-time transactions? Answers to that question are beginning to emerge. According to a …

The battle over the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act has taken a huge new turn. Early Thursday, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office filed a motion with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois’s Eastern Division challenging an Amicus brief from the Office of the Comptroller of …

Beginning next summer, PayPal Holdings Inc. will begin sharing more personalized shopper information with merchants, as outlined in its recently updated PayPal Privacy Statement. Data such as products, preferences, sizes, and styles will be shared with merchants to “help improve your shopping experience and make it more personalized for you,” …

A fresh report from Consumer Reports finds that two of the four peer-to-peer payments companies it evaluated have cleared up the definition of “unauthorized” transactions pertaining to fraud. The publication last reviewed Apple Cash, Cash App, Venmo, and Zelle in 2022. The issue of what is an unauthorized P2P transaction gained …

Strava, an online community for athletes, said it is working with Block Inc.’s Cash App unit to launch this year’s HBCU Homecoming Tour, which features running events at U.S. universities. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reportedly seeking comment on Apple Inc.’s practices with respect to contactless payments as the regulator works on …

The Illinois Retail Merchants Association released a survey late Wednesday showing that voters in the state support the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act passed earlier this year. The survey comes hard on the heels of a lawsuit filed last month by several organizations representing banks and credit unions challenging the …

Reaction from the payments industry to the Justice Department’s announcement Tuesday that it is suing Visa Inc. over antitrust issues involving its debit card business was swift and pointed. As expected, representatives of the payments industry denounced the lawsuit as baseless, while representatives of the merchant community and legislators friendly …

The U.S. Department of Justice’s 71-page complaint accusing Visa Inc. of monopolizing U.S. debit networks goes into great detail about the company’s pricing strategies and attempts to get merchants and card issuers to direct their debit business toward Visa. Those efforts have been quite successful. Referring to Visa’s so-called “moat” …

The biggest question the payments industry is wrestling with this week is whether the U.S. Department of Justice is about to sue Visa Inc., apparently over debit card issues. The financial wires were abuzz with speculation Tuesday morning that the DoJ could file an antitrust lawsuit before the day is …

Acquirers and independent sales organizations wanting to improve their standing among merchants should take note of four trends affecting payments today, according to Bill Dobbins, head of acquiring and enablement at Visa Inc. Dobbins, speaking at the Western States Acquirers Association conference in Las Vegas this week, outlined why the …