Interchange regulation is one step closer to reality after the U.S. Senate late on Thursday approved an amendment that would require the Federal Reserve to determine “reasonable and proportional” transaction fees for debit cards. Banks earn an estimated $15 billion annually from debit card interchange fees. The Senate approved the …

With cash back as a favored consumer reward, PayPal Holdings Inc. is broadening its use with the debut of PayPal Everywhere, a rewards program for consumers on the PayPal Debit Mastercard. Announced Thursday, the program includes stackable cash-back offers and personalized ways to manage spending. It enables PayPal Debit cardholders …

The bill may look sensible on the surface. But it’s a mistake to try conjuring up competition by diktat. Since his unsuccessful efforts in 2008 and 2009 to impose price controls on merchants’ card-acceptance costs, longtime payments-industry nemesis Sen. Ricard Durbin, D-Ill., has been on a crusade to gut the …

Decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court are supposed to settle matters, but a verdict the high court delivered early Monday has the potential to stir up debit card pricing questions for some time to come, some observers say. The justices, in a 6-3 decision, ruled a case brought by a …

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt shut down financial institutions for a week, called a “bank holiday,” to restore calm after a run on banks. This comes to mind after a federal judge recently indicated she won’t approve a settlement between the major card brands and merchants over the fees that …

Market pricing is preferable to legal settlements, which in turn are preferable to government regulation. Will the payments business ever learn that lesson? Many in the payments industry breathed a sigh of relief at Mastercard’s and Visa’s announcement in March of their landmark settlement of a longstanding antitrust suit over …

Consumers and merchants may be primed for it. New technology, consumer affinity for digital payments, and the allure of cheaper payment processing may be setting the stage for broader use of pay by bank in the United States. Paying by a bank account is not unfamiliar to most consumers. Already, …

The payments industry and the merchant community are pushing messages against and for the Credit Card Competition Act. Congress will decide who wins. Since the reintroduction a year ago of the Credit Card Competition Act, the bill’s proponents and opponents have unleashed high-octane marketing campaigns to sway legislators and the …

The National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition have lined up against the Federal Reserve, arguing that while a rate reduction on debit card transactions is welcome, the Fed’s proposed pricing does not go far enough. The two industry trade groups sent letters to the Fed last month on …

Despite some claims to the contrary, the odds are long that merchants would pass on any potential savings to consumers from the Credit Card Competition Act, payments experts say. One argument for this is that merchants price products on a line-item basis, which means the savings on a single product …