Law and Regulation

Block Inc. has been ordered to pay a $40-million fine to the state of New York for what the state’s regulator on Thursday called “significant failures in its Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering compliance program, which violated the [New York Department of Financial Services’ money transmitter and virtual currency regulations.”  The …

Paying down debt is one of the top ways consumers intend to spend their tax refund in 2025, says a survey from ACI Worldwide Inc. Some 39% of consumers surveyed said they would use their tax refund to pay down credit card debt and other loans, an indication that inflationary …

Sweeping regulation that would have impacted all major mobile-payment apps in the United States appears to be headed for the dustbin following action by the House of Representatives Wednesday to vote down a bill based on regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The House action follows a Senate vote …

With a renewed emphasis on retail merchants, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. is launching a tool to help retailers data and inventory forecasting. In related news, point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico says its SoftPOS software development kit achieved a PCI Security Standards Council certification. Montreal-based Lightspeed announced the its four-part plan to boost …

Fraud costs merchants in the United States $4.61 for every $1 of fraud incurred, up 32% from $3.16 in 2022, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ annual True Cost of Fraud Study. In Canada, fraud costs merchants $4.52 for every $1 of fraud incurred.  Driving the increase is that criminals are …

The e-commerce platform Shoplazza Corp. said it has upgraded its payments platform in an effort to streamline checkout and cut cart abandonment. Aurora Payments has launched a service for its Arise payment platform that replaces cardholder data with tokens issued by the card networks in an effort to cut fraud, boost approval rates, …

Merchant interest in accepting cryptocurrencies continues to expand, with headline progress stemming from high-end luxury-goods segments. The latest example comes from ECD Auto Design, a Kissimmee, Fla.-based dealer in restored luxury cars. The company on Thursday announced it is accepting crypto for vehicle purchases. ECD’s move comes as digital currencies …

Plaintiffs seeking to overturn Illinois’s interchange law filed a motion for summary judgement earlier this week and requested that the state’s attorney general drop the case to enforce the law, which is scheduled to go into effect July 1. A motion for summary judgment asks a court to decide a …

For some processors, opportunity can abound among high-risk merchants shunned by acquirers that fear the potential losses. But losses can also abound if these relationships are not well-supervised, warned a panel of experts Tuesday afternoon. “There’s a balance between how much risk we’re going to take on and how to …

Square and Cash App parent Block Inc. announced late Thursday its Square Financial Services Inc. industrial bank has received approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to make consumer loans through Block’s Cash App Borrow feature. Square Financial Services launched as a Salt Lake City-based, FDIC-chartered industrial bank in 2021 …