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The shutdown of digital-currency network Liberty Reserve by federal prosecutors on money-laundering charges is part of the increased focus on the virtual-currency market by regulators and law enforcement agencies, but doesn’t necessarily mean all such currencies face the same fate. While Liberty Reserve shared some common features with Bitcoin …
Read More »Court’s Critique Sparks NetSpend To Mull New Offers As Alternatives to TSYS Bid
Prepaid card program manager NetSpend Holdings Inc. on Wednesday said it will postpone until June 18 the shareholder meeting it planned for Friday to approve its $1.4 billion sale to processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS). The delay is an attempt in the wake of two shareholder lawsuits to create …
Read More »Visa, MasterCard File Suit As Credit Card Settlement Spawns More Litigation
World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. It didn’t, of course. And the settlement announced last July that was supposed to end lawsuits over bank card interchange and related network rules not only is failing to end litigation between merchants and the card …
Read More »As a Key Deadline Nears, Credit Card Interchange Settlement Inspires a Raft of Rhetoric
The rhetoric spewing from partisans on both sides of the massive credit card interchange-litigation settlement is heating up as a major deadline in the 8-year-old case approaches. May 28 is the last day the court overseeing the case will let merchants opt out of their share of monetary damages …
Read More »Mitek Prepares To Duke It out in Court with USAA over Disputed Patents
It looks like mobile-deposit software developer Mitek Systems Inc. and its former ally USAA Federal Savings Bank will be going to the mat in their their patent dispute. Despite a near tripling in revenues to $3.22 million, Mitek on Tuesday reported a $2.39 million loss for fiscal 2013’s second …
Read More »Officials Give Some Hints to Acquirers on How To Stay in Washington’s Good Graces
Often regarded as the enemy, officials from the federal government gave some friendly advice to merchant acquirers last week about what regulators are concerned with regarding payments, including mobile payments, prepaid cards, and fraud control. The recommendations came during a government panel Thursday at the Electronic Transactions Association’s annual conference …
Read More »Picture Clouded on Durbin’s Results for Retailers And Consumers, Study Says
One full year after complete implementation of the controversial Durbin Amendment’s debit card regulations, the impact on both merchants and consumers—the law’s putative beneficiaries—remains mixed, according to a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. While Durbin drastically reduced interchange for the country’s largest banks while …
Read More »Smaller Debit Issuers, Exempt from Durbin Caps, Still Feel Pricing Impact, Expert Says
The provisions of the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act are starting to hurt smaller issuers’ debit card income even though these financial institutions are explicitly exempted from the law’s cap on interchange rates, according to a debit expert. “This phenomenon is happening as we speak,” said Tony …
Read More »Judge Tells Retailer Groups To Settle Their Online Feud Arising From Interchange Settlement
In one of the stranger twists arising from the controversial settlement to credit card interchange litigation, the federal judge overseeing the massive case on Thursday gave lawyers for two feuding merchant groups a week to propose changes to a Web site that urges merchants to opt out of the …
Read More »Retailer Genesco Sues Visa To Recover $13 Million in Disputed PCI Fines
Sports apparel and accessories retailer Genesco Inc. has gone to court to challenge $13.3 million in fines levied by Visa Inc. for alleged violations of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard. Genesco’s may be the first retailer lawsuit filed against a card network over the PCI security standards, according …
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