Weekly News Update

Payments News Update – March 7, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Visa and Mastercard Accused of Card Monopoly by UK Watchdog PYMNTS – March 6, 2025 Visa and Mastercard face regulatory action in the United Kingdom following a payments watchdog’s investigation. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is considering “remedies” for the two companies after uncovering a lack of competition in the card payment market, according to...

Payments News Update – February 28, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Durbin to Reintroduce Credit Card Competition Bill Payments Dive – February 25, 2025 Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin plans to reintroduce the Credit Card Competition Act bill sometime “soon,” according to a spokesperson for his office. It’s not clear whether the Democrat will strike an alliance again on the legislation with Republican Sen. Roger Marshall,...

Payments News Update – February 21, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: CFPB Agrees to Pause Rumored Workforce Layoffs, Data Purge Bloomberg Law – February 14, 2025 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees got at least a two-week reprieve from an expected culling of the workforce after their union and the agency agreed to let a federal judge rule on the merits of the planned staff cuts and other efforts to shutter the...

Payments News Update – February 14, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: CFPB’s Future Hangs in the Balance After a Wild Weekend Banking Dive – February 10, 2025 A tombstone emoji was only the beginning. When Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk on Friday posted “CFPB RIP” on X, the social media platform he owns, it was, to many, the first clue that the Department of Government Efficiency had infiltrated the agency. By the end...

Payments News Update – February 7, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Credit Card Giants Drain Billions: Can Congress Take Action? GV Wire – February 4, 2025 Few Americans know that they spend on average $1,100 a year to pay for credit card transaction fees. In addition, U.S. retailers pay $170 billion annually to process credit card transactions, according to testimony from the Senate Judiciary Committee in November 2024. More...

Payments News Update – January 31, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Credit Card Convenience Comes at a Price. This Olympia Bill Aims to Change That KUOW – January 21, 2025 Paying by credit card is more common these days. But for each swipe, or tap, the credit card company charges businesses what’s called an interchange fee. And those fees add up. Washington state Senate Bill 5070, sponsored by Sen. Rebecca Saldana (D-Seattle),...

Payments News Update – January 24, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Tech Groups Sue to Block CFPB Rule Targeting Apple, Google Bloomberg Law – January 16, 2025 A pair of trade groups representing Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Apple Inc., and Google parent Alphabet Inc. sued to block a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that’s set to bring those companies’ payment operations under the agency’s supervision. The...

Payments News Update – January 17, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Buy Now, Pay Later Users Pile on Debt, CFPB Finds Payments Dive – January 14, 2025 Nearly two-thirds of consumers in the U.S. who lean on buy now, pay later transactions to pay for goods and services take out multiple BNPL loans at once, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concluded in a study released Monday. Most people who use BNPL as a payment method...

Payments News Update – January 10, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: The Fight Over Credit Card Swipe Fees Enters a New Year With No End in Sight NBC News – January 4, 2025 Many small businesses are breathing a bit easier as inflation has cooled and the race for workers slows. But consumers’ steady embrace of credit cards is taking a growing bite out of their margins. Gene-Christian Baca, the owner of Walter’s Hot Dogs in...

Payments News Update – January 3, 2025

Legal and Regulatory Developments SPOTLIGHT: Merchants Hit Back at a Banking Group’s Request That the Fed Hold Off on Reducing a Debit Interchange Cap Digital Transactions News – December 24, 2024 The Merchants Payments Coalition fired back late Monday at a request last week from the American Bankers Association that the Federal Reserve not act on a proposal to lower a longstanding limit on the interchange...