With each passing day, the proposed settlement of the giant antitrust suit over credit card interchange and card network rules appears to unravel even more as big-box merchants increasingly express dissatisfaction with the $7-billion-plus deal. The latest is Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which issued a statement on Tuesday opposing the agreement …

No sooner had the ink dried on a proposed settlement of a massive credit card suit than cracks began to appear in what had been an edifice of merchant solidarity. The NACS, a national trade group for convenience-store operators, on Friday said its board of directors had unanimously rejected the …

The card networks, major U.S. banks, and U.S. merchants reached a $7-billion-plus settlement late on Friday, capping a seven-year battle over credit card interchange and network acceptance rules. If approved by the court, the settlement will be the largest such agreement ever in an antitrust case. Under the terms of …

With a trial date looming in September, speculation is rising that a major antitrust case challenging credit card interchange will result in new rules handing merchants wider latitude in surcharging for transactions, routing payments, and steering customers to other cards or forms of payment. Settlement talks in the case, known …

National Payment Card Association is out to prove the obituaries for decoupled debit were, as the saying goes, exaggerated. Not only does the company have 4,000 gas stations accepting its PIN-based debit cards, it expects a major petroleum vendor will begin accepting debit transactions through its platform on a mobile …

Steve Mott Banks and merchants aren’t natural enemies—they’re only set at odds by the distortions created by the current payments system. In fact, most banks and retailers have much to gain, and little to lose, by working together on a new system built on mobile payments and marketing. (Editor’s note: …

A network fee introduced this year by Visa Inc. hands so-called merchant aggregators like PayPal Inc. an unfair cost advantage relative to traditional acquirers and independent sales organizations, a top executive with one leading ISO contends. The fee, known as the fixed acquirers network fee (FANF), is a complicated affair …

The chief executive officer of Discover Financial Services isn’t too pleased with what Visa Inc. is doing to retain its lead in the debit marketplace now that the Durbin Amendment’s transaction-routing provisions are in place. Discover owns the Houston-based Pulse network, which like other electronic funds transfer networks stands to …

It’s an obscure transaction code that even many payments people haven’t heard of. But POS, the code established by the automated clearing house network for debit card payments, is surging as major merchants adopt the payment method and offer significant rewards to customers who use it. The POS code, which …

Jane Adler Durbin’s cap on interchange for big banks was supposed to be the death knell for debit card rewards. Instead, rewards programs are flourishing, albeit with a few twists. “Relationship rewards,” anyone? After caps on debit card interchange rates went into effect last fall, KeyBank took a contrarian approach. …