Law and Regulation

New Jersey legislators last week passed a bill with overwhelming support to prevent businesses from banning consumers from using cash for purchases. The bill, which now goes to Gov. Phil Murphy for his signature, would make New Jersey only the second state to protect cash-using customers in stores. The proposed …

Top executives at Total System Services Inc. on Tuesday predicted big results from the Columbus, Ga.-based processor’s new Vital line of point-of-sale payment devices but also warned the onset of a massive federal regulation this spring will crimp prepaid card revenues in 2019. They also assured analysts on a conference …

The number of known data breaches fell 24% in 2018, but the number of compromised records that contained sensitive personally identifiable information more than doubled from 2017’s levels to over 450 million, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s latest annual data-breach review. The San Diego-based non-profit and partner CyberScout …

Jason Oxman, chief executive officer of the Electronic Transactions Association since 2012, is leaving to accept a position as president and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology Industry Council. He is expected to take up his new duties late next month. In his years heading the 29-year-old ETA, …

The European Commission, the European Union’s antitrust regulator, fined Mastercard Inc. €570.6 million ($648.2 million) for restricting merchants’ ability to sign with an acquirer in another EU single-market country with interchange rates lower than rates in the merchant’s home country before December 2015, when regulations capped EU interchange. The Commission …

Almost a year after Visa Inc. altered the chargeback-resolution process, merchants are reaping some of the benefit. A survey of 500 Chargeback Gurus merchants found that 78% have fewer chargebacks under the Visa Claims Resolution program. “The first goal was to streamline the dispute process,” Suresh Dakshina, Chargeback Gurus president, …

Merchant plaintiffs and the state of New York filed motions Tuesday in a federal appellate court to dismiss the merchants’ challenge to New York’s law banning credit card surcharges. As a result, surcharges will be allowed when the merchant posts total prices for credit card purchases in dollars and cents. …

With the enactment of data-breach notification laws in South Dakota and Alabama in 2018, all 50 states now have such laws, according to the Covington & Burling LLP law firm. Financial-institution processor Fiserv Inc. said the newly chartered Mi Bank in Bloomfield Township, Mich., will use a variety of Fiserv …

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Atlanta, mobile point-of-sale specialist AnywhereCommerce Inc. claims Ingenico Group SA interfered with its contracts and business relationships and violated its trade secrets. The case, filed Dec. 20 in the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division, alleges that Paris-based Ingenico and …

Mindbody Inc., the health and wellness software-application provider, said Vista Equity Partners will buy the company for $1.9 billion. Shareholders will receive $36.50 per share, a 68% premium over Mindbody’s Dec. 21 closing price of $21.72. Mindbody became an independent sales organization in 2010 to be able to sell its …