One area of certainty in the 2020 election is the momentum for legalizing cannabis, as a string of ballot box victories makes it harder for banks to avoid working with dispensaries and other legal marijuana businesses.
Major payment companies have long looked on at cryptocurrencies as too risky to touch, but too tempting to ignore. Mastercard's latest move indicates that the card brands are ready to make a firm pitch for crypto spending.
With coronavirus presenting significant challenges for retailers and the technical challenges of imposing interchange fee changes in the networks, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover are holding off on the updates.
In a move to increase the attractiveness of its Real-Time Payment network, The Clearing House is raising the transactional limit for single payments to $100,000 starting Feb. 1.
Facebook is focusing the initial discussions around its cryptocurrency project as a preemptive strike against the privacy and legal concerns the public and politicians have about the huge social network.
Banks and governments around the world have invested in systems that seek to instantly transfer money between accounts, moves that could put pressure on the sprawling debit-card business at the world’s largest payments network. But Visa Inc. Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly isn’t too worried.
The number of states not allowing surcharging on credit card purchases continues to dwindle, as New York now gives merchants the option to charge fees as long as they make the costs clear to consumers.
