Law and Regulation

Merchants caught up in three pricing class-action lawsuits involving Discover Financial Inc. have a proposed settlement to evaluate, according to a notice from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Announced Thursday, the settlement could see eligible merchants receive payments for Discover-issued consumer credit cards that were …

High-risk merchants can offer generous profit margins, but those returns must be weighed against the risks they bring. That balancing act starts before onboarding and continues afterward, panelists at the Western States Acquirers Association conference said Wednesday. One of the many considerations with high-risk merchants is to avoid misunderstanding the …

The Federal Reserve said Tuesday it will raise the transaction limit on FedNow transactions tenfold, to $10 million, effective in November. Launched in July 2023, FedNow is a real-time payments system linking more than 1,400 U.S. financial institutions. The move will have come nine months after the rival Real Time …

For years, critics and evangelists alike have obsessed over crypto’s headlines, its volatility, its philosophy, its personalities. But the GENIUS Act, recently passed in the United States, points to a new phase: a regulated, institutionalized, quietly ubiquitous crypto economy, one that doesn’t shout from the rooftops but works silently in …

VikingCloud, a cybersecurity and PCI-compliance company, is collaborating with Fiserv Inc. to make Mastercard Inc.’s Compliance and Validation Exemption Program available to small and mid-size businesses. Announced earlier this year, Mastercard’s C-VEP exempts eligible merchants from complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and validating their PCI-DSS compliance …

The U.S. cannabis market, which saw $30.1 billion in sales last year, is growing at an accelerating pace, and that’s attracting the attention of processors and other providers. The market’s emergence as a fertile payments-processing market comes as it continues to wrestle with regulatory issues and limited banking services. POSaBIT …

Stablecoin giant Circle Internet Group Inc. early Tuesday unveiled Arc, a new payments platform aimed at major money flows, including foreign exchange. The new service, part of the existing Circle Payments Network, will speed up foreign exchange while offering what the company calls “sub-second instant finality” in settlement, the company …

In a move to bolster its leading position in an increasingly difficult money-transfer market, The Western Union Co. announced Sunday it has a deal to acquire International Money Express Inc. for $500 million in cash. Better known as Intermex, Miami-based International Money Express has built a retail network of 100,000 …

Fintiv Inc., a digital-wallet developer, has sued Apple Inc., alleging the iPhone maker stole mobile-wallet technology from Fintiv to further its development of Apple Pay. The case was filed in the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division. Apple Pay debuted in October 2014. Fintiv at the time was known as …

With merchants prevailing in their long-running legal battle to overturn debit rate caps set by the Federal Reserve, the largest debit card issuers could wind up the biggest losers, while Capital One Financial Corp. emerges as the big winner. U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota Judge Daniel …