Law and Regulation

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 …

A hearing is set for today on two bills pending in the Massachusetts Legislature that would repeal the state’s decades-old ban on cashless stores. If passed, the bipartisan legislation, which is drawing fire from the ATM industry, would put Massachusetts at odds with efforts this year in a number of …

Equifax Inc., which in 2017 sustained a data breach that potentially exposed sensitive information related to 148 million files, on Monday announced what that massive intrusion will cost the company. The Atlanta-based credit-reporting agency said it will pay $671 million as part of an agreement to settle multidistrict class-action litigation …

The Federal Trade Commission said payment processor Allied Wallet, its CEO and owner Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, and two company officers agreed to settle FTC charges that they assisted numerous scams by knowingly processing fraudulent transactions that took more than $110 million from consumers’ account.The two-day Amazon Prime Day event this week sold more than 175 …

Facebook Inc.’s Calibra wallet will generate revenue for its parent by stimulating incremental advertising but the proposed Libra cryptocurrency will also work with competing wallet apps, the company’s point man for Calibra said Tuesday. David Marcus, head of Calibra for the huge social network, said in prepared remarks that the new …