Law and Regulation

Consumer complaints about payment products and services have shot up since March, when the national emergency was declared to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Complaints about credit and prepaid card products are up 29% over the same period last year, and gripes about money-transfer, virtual-currency, and money services have soared …

With trillions of dollars in federal stimulus money sloshing around in the economy to help consumers who have lost their jobs due to Covid-19, fraudsters are ratcheting up their efforts to get a piece of that pie. Two popular plans of attack are imposter scams, where criminals impersonate representatives of …

A new rule requiring all financial institutions in the automated clearing house network to participate in ACH governing body Nacha’s contact registry took effect Wednesday. The registry’s purpose is to enable financial institutions to quickly find the appropriate person to resolve issues when a transaction looks fraudulent or presents other …

A new European Commission report shows how interchange regulation has lowered merchants’ payment card acceptance costs and taken more than $3 billion a year from card issuers’ top lines. The EC, the executive arm of the Brussels-based European Union, implemented its so-called Interchange Fee Regulation in 2015 and 2016. The …

Chargebacks reverberate throughout the payment stream, and now Chargebacks911 has released a tool that it says will help financial institutions better manage them. Dubbed Fi911, the tool is meant to automate procedures and make them more efficient, Clearwater, Fla.-based Chargebacks911 says. The company says more chargeback inquiries are being directed …

Stories too good to be true often aren’t. The curtain has at long last been pulled back on high-flying payments fintech Wirecard AG. A whopping $2.1 billion in cash on its balance sheet can’t be verified and likely never existed. Chief executive Markus Braun has resigned and was arrested. Chief …

Amadis, a payment software provider, announced an EMV migration product for petroleum and convenience stores. In conjunction with Advanced Mobile Payment Inc. and Texas Engineering Consulting Systems and Services, Amadis developed a proprietary Android-based contactless pay-at-the-pump product that decouples the fuel pump dispenser from the point-of-sale system, enabling payment authorization to take …

Facing criticism for withholding as much as 30% of some small merchants’ payment volume, merchant processor and business software provider Square Inc. on Tuesday posted an explanation of its new reserve policy. “Out of our millions of sellers, fewer than 0.3% have reserves on their accounts, but given increased interest, …

One of the most aggressive—and worrisome—central bank digital currency models is a proposal from law professors Morgan Ricks and John Crawford and lawyer and former regulator Lev Menand that the Fed provide direct banking “FedAccounts” to consumers and businesses. It’s intended to improve payments efficiency and reduce the number of …

ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf Inc. extended its agreement with consulting firm Accenture plc to streamline its operations by making business processes digital and moving them to the cloud. Diebold Nixdorf says the pact could yield $50 million in savings through 2023.The Federal Reserve released its FraudClassifier model, an effort to bring consistency to the …