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Two retailer organizations dissatisfied with a $5.7 billion settlement of a class-action antitrust case alleging unfair credit card interchange rates have filed the next step in their appeal of the settlement. The National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association said Monday they filed a joint brief with the …
Read More »Beyond Credit Scores: Affirm Launches Deferred And Installment Credit for Online Sales
Transactional credit providers have been few and far between. Bill Me Later launched 14 years ago and was snapped up by eBay Inc. in 2008. BillFloat Inc. started up four years ago and has changed its name to Better Finance Inc. It’s a challenging business requiring close attention to funding costs and …
Read More »Though Facing Slim Odds, A Merchant Group Takes Its Durbin Case to the Supreme Court
Arguing that a federal appeals court “disregarded the plain letter of the statute,” a group of merchants and merchant associations is preparing a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case in which it is battling to overturn the Federal Reserve Board’s interpretation of the Durbin Amendment’s debit …
Read More »Stockpile Emerges To Offer Digital Gift Cards Backed by Stock to ‘Everyday’ Consumers
A new type of gift card is set to debut this summer that will be backed not by cash but by shares of stock. The virtual card will come from a startup called Stockpile Inc., which has created a waiting list for interested potential accountholders and is planning to market …
Read More »In a Move Aimed at Aggregators And Small Sellers, Visa Tweaks FANF Fees Effective April 2015
Visa Inc. has tweaked its controversial fixed acquirer network fee (FANF), with the changes scheduled to take effect 12 months from now, according to sources who have seen the changes. A bulletin Visa released last week and circulated to acquirers indicates the modifications to the 2-year-old FANF are aimed chiefly …
Read More »It’s Wal-Mart vs. Visa in Yet Another Payment Card Interchange Battle Royal
They’ve met in court before, and it looks like they’re going to meet again: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the No. 1 retailer, against Visa Inc., the No. 1 payment card network. As usual, the subject is interchange and payment card acceptance rules. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart is suing Visa for alleged violations …
Read More »Sen. Durbin Decries Appellate Court’s ‘Giveaway’ to Banks; Merchants Mull Their Next Steps
An appellate court’s Friday decision reinstating the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment with its debit card interchange cap and transaction-routing requirements continues to draw fire, but whether the merchants and retail groups that brought the appeal and lost will trudge on in court remains …
Read More »CloudPay Mobile Payment Services Promises Lower Processing Costs
A new mobile wallet called CloudPay may undercut traditional payment processing fees that merchants typically pay. Announced earlier this week, CloudPay from New Media Insight Group Inc., a Phoenix-based company, says merchants pay only 0.5% per transaction, a markedly lower rate than traditional pricing that might be as high …
Read More »Durbin Wants To Know How Well His Debit Card Fraud-Prevention Adjustment Is Working
In the wake of recent data breaches at Target Corp. and other retailers, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, author of a famous amendment that regulates debit card interchange, and an ally want to know how well a provision in the amendment that gives a debit card issuer an extra penny in …
Read More »AmEx Ramps Up Effort To Sign Small Merchants With Its OptBlue Program
American Express Co. is stepping up its campaign to add small merchants to its acceptance base with a program called OptBlue that gives partner merchant acquirers a greater role than they had with an older program called OnePoint. AmEx started testing OptBlue late last year and revealed details about it …
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