Law and Regulation

Despite very few stores in Wisconsin refusing to accept cash payments, a member of the state Assembly recently introduced a bill that would require merchants to accept cash for face-to-face purchases, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. The bill would impose fines of $200 up to $5,000 for violations. Similar proposals have passed or are pending in …

The year 2019 is shaping up to be the worst year yet for data breaches, according to a recent report from Risk Based Security Inc. Through the year’s first half, 3,813 breaches were reported, up 54% from a year earlier. Those breaches exposed more than 4.1 billion consumer records, up …

More than a score of Texas cities have been hit with ransomware, crippling their municipal computer systems and accounting for one-third of all municipal ransomware attacks so far this year, according to Armor Defense Inc., a cloud-security company. It released a ransomware report Tuesday. Among the latest cities is Borger, …

From cities to stadiums to quick-service restaurants, more and more places are grappling with the idea of going 100% cashless. According to the Pew Research Center, almost a third of Americans have stopped using cash for their typical weekly spending. Even Monopoly, many children’s first interaction with money and the …

Ending months of speculation, the Federal Reserve confirmed Monday it will launch a real-time payments service by 2023 or 2024. The banking regulator, which also published Monday a notice in the Federal Register outlining its plan and requesting comment, will thus take what it says is its biggest move in …

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce Monday whether it will enter the business of real-time payments as an operator competing with existing private-sector players.  A so-called public option from the national banking regulator could please retailers and small financial institutions concerned about whether the nascent real-time payments market …

Mastercard Inc. has become the first payment card network to join the NoMoreRansom initiative sponsored by Europol, a support-services organization for law-enforcement agencies in the European Union. Europol says the 3-year-old NoMoreRansom public-private partnership project has helped 200,000 ransomware victims recover their computer files free of charge and has prevented …

First Data Corp. and Fiserv Inc. expect to close Monday on Fiserv’s $22-billion acquisition of First Data. The deal, announced in January, has received final required regulatory approvals and non-objections, First Data said. First Data announced $2.49 billion in revenue for the second quarter, up 2% year-over-year.A group of Congressional Democrats, including presidential …

Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says his massive social-networking company is using an open process to get its proposed Libra cryptocurrency into the market and won’t roll it out until all concerns are addressed. Zuckerberg fielded questions about the controversial Libra project at the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call …

Visa Inc.’s net income jumped by a third in the quarter ended June 30, a period when the leading payment card network’s global transaction volume rose nearly 12% and the company completed or announced several acquisitions to broaden its franchise. Visa chairman and chief executive Alfred F. Kelly Jr. told …