Pricing

Fresh from their Senate victory May 13, proponents of interchange regulation on Tuesday urged U.S. House of Representatives leaders to adopt the so-called Durbin amendment that could limit debit card interchange and overturn some bank card network rules in order to make it easier for merchants to discount for other …

Payments-industry partisans of all stripes got onto their soap boxes on Friday and Monday to praise or denounce U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s successful amendment that could pave the way for regulation of debit card interchange and acceptance terms. Merchant interests basked in the surprisingly large (64-33) victory they scored late …

Interchange regulation is one step closer to reality after the U.S. Senate late on Thursday approved an amendment that would require the Federal Reserve to determine “reasonable and proportional” transaction fees for debit cards. Banks earn an estimated $15 billion annually from debit card interchange fees. The Senate approved the …

The gap in acceptance costs between PIN-based and signature debit, once wide, continues to narrow, payments executives say. The trend is most apparent in the new interchange schedules for Visa Inc.’s Interlink electronic funds transfer network and the signature-based Visa check card. A number of Interlink rates are rising by …

Banks, merchants, and others scratching their heads over the exploding popularity of social networking and its close cousin, social gaming, can harness the online phenomenon for payments but will likely have to jettison decades of settled thinking, experts say. Banks, in particular, will have to wrestle with knotty problems surrounding …

The battle over interchange regulation continues to heat up, with the introduction this week of amendments to financial regulatory reform legislation pending in the U.S. Senate that would target the controversial fees charged to merchants. The three amendments, sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy, …

Visa Inc.'s U.S. debit card purchase volumes again put on a strong performance in the quarter ending March 31 and the battered credit card sector continued a revival first seen in late 2009. Merchant acquirers, however, are paying more to process Visa transactions, and they can expect another price increase …

After months of inactivity on interchange regulation, the U.S. House of Representatives judiciary committee on Wednesday held a hearing on one bill advocated by national merchant groups. And while the committee took no action, one merchant group views the hearing as a hopeful sign that legislation will be passed. The …

Capping a process that began last fall, NACHA announced a partner on Monday to help commercialize a system it has been piloting that lets consumers receive and pay bills electronically through the automated clearing house network. The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, a New York City-based company whose Electronic Payments …

After five months of discussion, the Canadian government is out with the final draft of its Code of Conduct for the payments industry. The merchant-friendly code is supposedly voluntary, but proposed legislation could force it upon payments companies that don't adopt it on their own by May 17. “Payment card …