Credit & Debit Cards

New BoA Card to Bring Inner Peace

03/22/14

As noted by America's finest news source here.

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Debt Collection Complaints and Regulation: Last Chance to Comment on ANPR

02/28/14

Today is your last chance to comment on the CFPB's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Regulation F, regarding debt collection.  I had the pleasure of working with Pat McCoy on a joint comment to the ANPR.

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Data Breaches: Target, Neiman Marcus

01/11/14

Let's be really clear about what most identity theft is about:  it's about payments data.  Identity theft is first and foremost a payments fraud problem.

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The Behavioral Economics of Bitcoin

01/11/14

I'm going to wade into unchartered Slips waters today and head into Bitcoinland. I've been trying to understand Bitcoin from a payment systems perspective, where it has an interesting problem and solution:  double spending.  The lesson in all of this is how Bitcoin has a sort of built in seniorage--payments are never free. Currently Bitcoin builds in its costs through inflation, which is not particularly transparent, but that will ultimately change to being more transparent--and salient-- transaction fees.

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Voice--the credit card, not the TV show

11/18/13

For years, "product innovation" in financial services made consumer advocates squirm. This was the cover term for the 2/28 teaser ARM, automatic and costly overdraft protection, and direct deposit "payday" style loans. It was a great term because it's hard to be anti-innovation, especially in a world where every day a new app or technology proves useful. A new credit card, called "Voice" from Huntington Bank, is innovating in the credit card space.

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NY State No-Surcharge Law Unconstitutional

10/03/13

Judge Rakoff issued an opinion today holding that the New York state credit card no-surcharge law violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution because a "surcharge" and a "discount" are two ways of expressing the same thing, and the state of NY cannot direct merchants which of those two ways of expression to use.

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Interchange Updates: Canada, EU, and the US

07/26/13

All's Quiet on the American Front in the interchange wars.  But there has been some action to report in Canada and the EU. In Canada, the federal Competition Tribunal dismissed the suit brought by the Canadian antitrust authority against Visa and MasterCard. Only a summary of the decision is available--the ruling is under seal.

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Don't Throw In the Towel on Mobile Yet

07/11/13

Felix Salmon has an interesting and provocative piece arguing Why Mobile Payments Will Never Take Off. The problem, Felix observes, is that none of the mobile payment systems around really offer any improved convenience over plastic.

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