Payments News Update – October 2, 2026
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Senate Passes Common Cents Bill
Payments Dive – September 29, 2026
The Common Cents Act, which gives merchants a legal framework for rounding to the nearest nickel amid a dearth of pennies, passed the Senate on Monday night and heads to President Donald Trump.
The bipartisan bill – which also formally ends U.S. Mint production of the penny – represents a victory for merchants that had sought federal guidance on how to more efficiently handle cash transactions as pennies gradually fade from circulation. The measure doesn’t apply to electronic transactions.
In a press release Tuesday, NACS, the National Association of Convenience Stores, hailed passage of the bill and said Trump is expected to sign it in coming weeks. “The act provides guidance that is critical for businesses that process cash transactions as the number of pennies in circulation continues to dwindle,” Brennan Duckett, NACS’ director of regulatory and policy, said in the release. . . .
A Judge Rules an Apple Pay Fee Case Can Move Forward As a Class Action
Digital Transactions News – September 28, 2026
A federal judge has ruled that a case brought by three financial institutions against Apple Inc. can proceed as a class action. The ruling, issued Wednesday by Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, certifies the plaintiffs as a class while dismissing Apple’s move to exclude a damages expert put forward by the plaintiffs.
The years long litigation, in which the financial institutions argue Apple has excluded rivals to its own Apple Pay wallet for contactless transactions on the tech giant’s iPhone, now appears likely to proceed.
Financial institutions in the case contend Apple’s exclusion of competing wallets has cost them as much as $1 billion yearly in transaction fees. . . .
Fed Proposes Stablecoin Reserve and Capital Rules Under GENIUS Act
PYMNTS – September 24, 2026
The Federal Reserve Board is requesting public comment on two proposals related to establishing a regulatory framework for the payment stablecoin issuers it supervises under the GENIUS Act, it said in a Thursday (Sept. 24) press release.
The agency released two notices of proposed rulemaking and will accept comment on them for 60 days after their publication in the Federal Register, according to the release.
One proposal would require that board-supervised payment stablecoin issuers fully back their stablecoins with certain permissible reserve assets, would establish standardized capital requirements to address certain credit and operational risks of payment stablecoin activities, would establish risk management standards, would introduce rules for board-supervised firms that safekeep the assets backing payment stablecoins and would clarify the permissibility of stablecoin and related activities for board-supervised banks, the release said. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT: AmEx Widens Global Reach as Card Acceptance Tops 190 Million Merchant Locations
Reuters – September 28, 2026 (subscription may be required)
American Express said on Monday its credit cards can now be used at over 190 million merchant locations worldwide, with acceptance outside the US having more than doubled over the past four years.
The expansion attempts to address a longstanding gap between AmEx and rival card networks Visa and Mastercard, which have historically had broader merchant acceptance outside the US and greater scale in many key international markets.
The company said it focused on strengthening acceptance in locations where card members were spending their time, including travel destinations such as Barcelona, Hong Kong, Paris and Sicily. . . .
ACH Use Rises for B2B Payments
Payments Dive – September 24, 2026
Electronic ACH payments through the automated clearing house were the most popular form of business-to-business payment in 2024, based on an analysis this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
That’s a big change from 2015 when paper checks ranked as the top B2B choice, but they have since fallen to the fourth most popular among five types, based on the number of transactions, the Fed study said.
The number of B2B transactions in the U.S. by way of ACH payments more than doubled between 2015 and 2024, jumping to 8.7 billion from 3.6 billion, according to the Fed analysis, which used data from the central bank’s triennial payments study and the Association for Financial Professionals to zero in on business payments. . . .