Law and Regulation

Visa Inc. announced early Tuesday it is supporting stablecoins as a settlement option for issuer and acquirer banks in the United States, a major move in payment card finance and one observers see as an inevitable next step for the industry, though one that could come with complications. The use …

Merchant groups late Friday filed written complaints regarding the latest settlement offer in their two-decades old lawsuit against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. challenging card swipe fees. The settlement offer, which follows a rejected offer in 2024, was made in November. Merchant groups filing complaints were The National Association of …

Two major players in stablecoins, Circle Internet Financial Inc. and Ripple Labs Inc., received conditional approval Friday from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish national trust banks. Both companies coveted the approvals as key to establishing confidence in stablecoins among consumers and businesses as they …

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals required that certain elements of an order that held Apple Inc. in contempt must be modified, but upheld most of the findings as well as an earlier injunction against Apple. The case stemmed from a 2020 lawsuit filed by Epic Games against Apple to challenge …

Fees paid by merchants to accept credit card and debit cards will dampen consumer spending power this holiday shopping season as sellers look for ways to offset the cost, says the Merchants Payment Coalition. Swipe fees are projected to cost merchants at least $19.9 billion this holiday shopping season, up …

Banner years are generally welcome, except when it comes to ransomware. New data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, finds that ransomware payments jumped 77%, or $1.1 billion, in 2023 year-over-year from 2022. The FinCEN Financial Trend Analysis report also found that …

Fraudsters are becoming better organized and building industrial-strength infrastructures to commit fraud, making their actions harder to detect and prevent, says Visa Inc.’s Fall 2025 Biannual Threats Report. The report, which pulls data from the Visa’s global network, identifies the five biggest fraud threats facing the payments ecosystem: the industrialization …

President Trump nominated Stuart Levenbach to be the new permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Levenbach is a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget. Acting director Russell Vought’s term is set to expire in December under the Vacancies Act.  Toast Inc. said it will grant $10,000 to …

A lawsuit filed in March 2016 over how the four U.S. card brands handled the liability shift during the EMV migration more than 10 years ago, along with unreimbursed chargebacks associated with it, has reached its next step. The suit is over unreimbursed liability-shift chargebacks made with a credit or …

As the dust settles around the latest settlement agreement in Visa Inc.’s and Mastercard Inc.’s long running legal battle with merchants over card-acceptance fees, how the offer will impact the payments industry is coming into focus. Early reaction to the agreement from payments experts is that interchange relief will be …