Merchants in the United States paid $224 billion in card-acceptance costs in 2023, the highest toll for merchants in any country in the world, according to payment consultancy CMSPI’s State of the Industry Report. Interchange fees alone accounted for $143 billion of that total. Since 2009, U.S. merchants’ like-for-like payment …

Retailers providing cash-back services at the point of sale fill a void for many consumers who may live in so-called banking deserts, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says in a new report on the service. Some, however, charge a fee for that access, along with other banking hurdles. The Cash-back …

Fortis Payment Systems LLC acquired the NetSuite payments division of MerchantE Solutions Inc. Fortis said the acquisition will boost its position in embedded enterprise resource planning payments. Terms were not disclosed. Mastercard Inc. and JPMorgan Chase are two of eight companies the Federal Trade Commission issued orders to seek information about products that …

Merchants are looking forward to making their case now that a judge has rejected a proposed settlement of their two-decades-long litigation with Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. over transaction costs. Late Tuesday morning, Margo K. Brodie, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York, issued a written …

Groups representing Illinois financial institutions, along with the Electronic Payments Coalition, say they will fight to overturn the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which was passed earlier this month and is set to go into effect July 1 next year. Opponents of the bill are continuing an ad campaign to …

Merchants have been granted a 90-day extension to file a monetary claim as part of the settlement of a nearly two-decades-old interchange lawsuit filed against Visa and Mastercard. Merchants now have until Aug. 30 to file their claims, the court overseeing the settlement has ruled. A settlement between Visa and …

A bill containing a provision that would raise the asset threshold for debit card issuers covered by the Durbin Amendment narrowly passed in a vote late Thursday by the House Financial Services Committee. The committee voted 24-22 in favor of advancing the bill, called the Bank Resilience and Regulatory Improvement …

Lightspeed Commerce Inc. announced it is supplying payments capability for the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association in South Carolina, which includes more than 70 golf courses. The Western Union Co. resumed service between the United States and Cuba after technical issues in January disrupted it. Payments provider Priority Technology Holdings Inc. reported $205.7 million …

The war over the proposed Credit Card Competition Act shows no signs of abating as combatants on both sides of the fence continue their efforts to sway legislators and public opinion on the matter of card-acceptance costs. The latest battle centers on data from payments consultancy CMSPI that says merchants …

(Editor’s note: This is Part II of a two-part article. Part I appeared Thursday.) Interchange fees paid by merchants are the credit card industry’s second-largest revenue source. For debit cards and neobanks, these fees are a primary revenue source. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act imposed price controls on debit interchange fees …