Law and Regulation

The Fed has amassed enormous—in practice, unaccountable—power, and taken roles natural to government and to the private sector. It’s the central bank, paramount financial-system regulator, and a payments operator. It shouldn’t, however, undertake activities better and naturally performed in the private sphere.  The latest example: On its own prerogative, the …

Policymakers have much work ahead when reviewing cryptocurrencies like the proposed Libra, a European regulator said Wednesday. In related news, a cryptocurrency payment plugin debuts for WordPress. The Libra cryptocurrency project led by Facebook Inc. has “undoubtedly been a wake-up call for central banks and policymakers,” said Benoit Coeure, a …

One of the longest-running antitrust lawsuits in the payments industry is getting into gear again with a new request by independent ATM deployers for class certification in their action against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. The National ATM Council Inc. (NAC) trade group and 13 ATM independent sales organizations originally …

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority fined PayPal Holdings Inc. £250,000 ($309,700) in connection with PayPal’s $2.2 billion acquisition of Sweden-based processor iZettle AB last year; the regulator said PayPal violated an order not to integrate its U.K. business with iZettle during an investigation by cross-selling services to U.K. consumers. PayPal said it …

The clamor to sign up merchants that want to sell hemp-derived cannabidiol products is undiminished despite multiple questions about what a legal CBD product is and how to onboard these merchants. “The banks are having a tough time now because it’s so new,” said Travis Chrisman, president and cofounder of …

The Federal Trade Commission announced settlements with the two principals of Apex Capital Group, an Internet marketer of dietary supplements and personal-care products the FTC accused of using deceptive free-trial offers and negative-option billing in the U.S. and United Kingdom. The defendants must surrender assets valued at $3 million or more and are barred …

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable on May 28, 2018, in the European Union (EU). Now, almost a year and a half later, things seem to be getting a bit more real as companies like British Airways and Marriott International are being hit with substantial fines and the Information …

CBD is all the rage these days as a newly available medicine that can alleviate everything from pain to insomnia, and now e-commerce platform provider Shopify Inc. is pitching its payment and other support services to U.S. CBD merchants. Ottawa, Ontario-based Shopify, which serves 800,000 merchants globally and has major …

Turnkey Risk Solutions, a risk-management firm specializing in first-party fraud, rebranded as Humaitrix LLC. Payments veterans John J. Leehy III joined the company as chief executive and Gregory W. Sahrmann joined as the chief operating officer. Amy Walraven, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. risk executive, is founder, president, and chief …

With card-based transit payments picking up steam in the United States, a key Mastercard Inc. executive said Thursday that 22% of the network’s physical-world transactions globally were contactless as of the end of 2018. The time to complete a contactless transaction is down to 0.4 seconds, added Ajay Bhalla, president …