Law and Regulation

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews After five years, it looks like class-action lawsuits by ATM independent sales organizations and consumers challenging Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. rules over ATM surcharging on antitrust grounds may finally be headed to trial. The U.S. Supreme Court last week dismissed appeals by Visa and MasterCard after …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Visa Inc.’s practices involving EMV debit card transaction routing, Visa disclosed Tuesday. And the Federal Reserve earlier this month posted guidance about EMV debit routing that, according to retailer trade groups, was issued in response to their objections to Visa’s practices …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Merchant trade groups have kept up a steady drumbeat this year in support of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment with its debit card regulations. But, with Republicans taking full control of the federal government in January, the drumbeat got louder Tuesday when 627 large and small merchants …

NetSpend, the prepaid card unit of processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), is facing a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed Thursday over allegations the company deceptively marketed reloadable debit cards. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges NetSpend promised “immediate access” to …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews The impact of a Donald J. Trump presidency on the payments industry may not be known in concrete terms yet, but speculation suggests a fair number of moves meant to take some of the sting out of regulations. Republican Trump handily won the Electoral College vote Tuesday, …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews In its short lifetime, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already established itself as one of the most aggressive regulators confronting the financial-services industry, including payments services. But in a speech on Sunday the director of the 5-year-old federal agency sounded a number of conciliatory notes …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Its many critics have labeled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the regulatory agency run amok, but the CFPB declined to regulate virtual currencies in its newly released rule governing prepaid card accounts even though banks and consumer groups urged it to do so. The CFPB issued …

By Jim Daly@DTPayment News Nearly two years and thousands of comments after issuing its draft regulation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its long-awaited final prepaid card rule Wednesday. The 1,689-page document, almost double the size of the draft rule the CFPB issued in November 2014, largely follows what the …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Like a heavy Thanksgiving meal, the 1,689 pages of new prepaid account regulations from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are going to take a while to digest. The rules cover everything from fee disclosures to overdrafts, and, predictably, they are is drawing praise from consumer groups …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A federal appeals court on Monday handed American Express Co. a signal victory in the age-old battle with merchants over card-acceptance costs, but in doing so it may also have bolstered the card giant in its efforts to set and enforce merchant pricing. The U.S. Court …