Law and Regulation

  The PCI Security Standards Council on Thursday released yet another set of data-protection guidelines for mobile payments, this one aimed at merchants using smart phones and tablet computers to accept credit and debit cards. Although it touches on many points, the guidance especially focuses on the software running on …

  Visa Inc. on Monday became the latest payments network to offer the U.S. debit industry a solution for the problem of how to route EMV debit transactions in compliance with federal law. The proposal comes after debit networks on Thursday spurned a solution that MasterCard Inc. floated two weeks …

  It took less than two weeks for the Secure Remote Payment Council (SRPc), a consortium of U.S. electronic funds transfer networks, to reject MasterCard Inc.’s offer for EFT networks to use its proprietary Maestro application identifier (AID) to allow processors to route EMV debit transactions according to network choices …

A sweeping review by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City of the Durbin Amendment’s effects warns that competition could be harmed if more payment card networks adopt fixed-pricing plans as they compete for merchant business in the newly regulated debit card environment. The new report is the first of …

An effort by a U.S. standards body to gauge interest in a meeting to discuss an open-standard alternative to EMV for chip cards stems primarily from the organization’s concern that EMV’s specifications are not commonly owned by the payments industry, the body’s top executive says. “EMV is a proprietary standard, …

MasterCard Inc. on Friday proposed a solution that it says would allow merchant acquirers to route EMV debit transactions in compliance with a federal law mandating that merchants have a choice of networks. Under the proposal, MasterCard would open a proprietary application identifier (AID) associated with its Maestro brand to …

Have the Durbin Amendment’s interchange restrictions cut into debit card revenue at the nation’s smaller financial institutions? In the wake of a spin war touched off on Monday by a merchant-controlled lobbying group, the answer appears to be: It depends on whom you ask. Monday morning, the Washington, D.C.-based Merchants …

Mobile payments are the all the rage in the banking, retailing, and software industries, but the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is cautioning banks to keep a short leash on their mobile-payments vendors. The FDIC also warned in a recent report that banks’ role in mobile payments could be reduced as …

The Federal Trade Commission disclosed on Wednesday that it is investigating whether payment card network rules and practices violate the debit card transaction-routing provisions of the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. It’s uncertain, however, whether the investigation goes beyond what Visa Inc. said the FTC requested of it in …

A federal appellate court has turned down a retailer appeal to review part of the controversial settlement in a massive credit card interchange case, clearing the way for the trial court to move toward final approval. Meanwhile, the Herculean task of notifying millions of merchants about the settlement is getting …