Law and Regulation

A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a massive agreement initially reached four years ago over card-network interchange and acceptance rules, drawing a sudden veil of uncertainty over crucial legal matters much of the payments industry had thought were all but settled. In a 41-page opinion studded with sometimes …

The Kroger Co. on Monday sued Visa Inc. over the network’s alleged efforts to force the nation’s leading grocery-store chain to route EMV chip debit card transactions over Visa’s network by having customers sign for purchases rather than enter PINs. Kroger, the largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to …

  Regulation of virtual currency at the state level is proving to be a stop-and-start affair. No other state has yet followed New York with its now famous “BitLicense” to regulate virtual currencies under existing law. But in North Carolina, a bill to update the state’s money-transmitter act could become …

The Home Depot Inc.’s new lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. makes many of the same antitrust allegations that other merchants have lodged against the big networks in recent years. The suit, however, is notable for asking the court to quash Visa’s Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) and, like …

Long-time payments players who like to scoff at Bitcoin as an unproven payments instrument will have to reckon with the robust vote of confidence buyers and sellers of the 7-year-old digital currency have given it over the past few days. Bitcoin’s U.S. dollar value breached the $700 level late Sunday …

• A bill by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to replace 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act” would hurt consumers and Main Street businesses,” the Merchants Payments Coalition said, because the measure would do away with the financial reform law’s Durbin Amendment that regulates debit card interchange and sets debit card transaction-routing requirements. …

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the author of the fee-capping Durbin Amendment, is well-known as a champion of merchants, but now he’s taking up the cause of small banks and credit unions. Durbin on Tuesday sent a letter to Visa Inc. chief executive Charles Scharf asking for information about a new …

The latest battle between merchants and the major card brands has been brewing behind the scenes for months but went public Thursday when an advocacy group for big-box retailers charged that a new twist on network rules is slowing the progress of mobile payments. The controversy involves regulations long maintained …

A trade group of independent ATM deployers on Thursday issued a report blasting the federal government’s Operation Choke Point targeting high-risk merchants, and the nation’s leading retailer association called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the PCI Security Standards Council on antitrust grounds. While mostly affecting a few merchant …

• The Texas Attorney General’s office and PayPal Holdings Inc. last week settled the office’s allegations that PayPal’s Venmo person-to-person payments service compromised customers’ privacy and security; PayPal agreed to improve disclosures, ensure that Venmo users know who can see their transaction information, and pay the state $175,000. “We are …