Payments News Update – April 10, 2026
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Illinois AG Defends Card Fee Law
Payments Dive – April 7, 2026
An Illinois law that prohibits interchange levies on sales tax and gratuities doesn’t interfere with banks’ or card networks’ ability to set fees, the state’s attorney general said Friday in defending the law before an appellate court.
The Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act isn’t subject to federal preemption by the National Bank Act as the state law doesn’t “purport to constrain national banks’ authority to establish or collect interchange fees from their customers,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office wrote in a filing with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The state filed its response Friday to an appeal by a coalition of banks and credit unions challenging the Illinois law. . . .
Real Winners From Reserve Bank of Australia’s Credit, Debit Card Surcharge Ban Revealed by Payment Expert Brad Kelly
Sky News Australia – April 2, 2026
The real winners from the Reserve Bank of Australia banning credit and debit card surcharges are the major card networks Visa and Mastercard, a leading payments expert has revealed.
Surcharges will be banned from October 1 after the RBA conducted an 18-month long consultation period with major banks, companies and business bodies.
Interchange fees – which are paid by a business’ bank to the customer’s bank – will be lowered while the RBA promised to ensure increased transparency surrounding fees charged by card networks. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Visa Targets Fraud and Friction as Disputes Hit Record
PYMNTS – April 1, 2026
Visa has introduced a group of tools aimed at replacing outdated dispute processes.
The six new dispute resolution tools, announced Wednesday (April 1) are designed to help merchants and financial institutions shrink administrative costs and cut fraud-related losses amid growing instances of disputed transactions.
In 2025, Visa said in a news release, the company processed a record 106 million disputes worldwide, a 35% increase since 2019. . . .
US Digital Wallet Use Projected to Grow by 2030
Payments Dive – April 6, 2026
Digital wallet use is expected to climb in the U.S. for both e-commerce transactions as well as in-store purchases, with online consumers expected to use that payment method 44% of the time by 2030 and in-store buyers expected to use it 26%, according to Worldpay’s 11th annual Global Payments Report.
The world is already ahead of that predicted U.S. digital wallet use. Globally, digital wallet payments last year accounted for 56% of e-commerce purchases, more than credit cards (20%), debit cards (10%), account-to-account transactions (7%) and buy now, pay later purchases (4%).
Digital wallets were also the dominant payment method for in-store purchases worldwide, followed by credit cards (24%), debit cards (22%) and cash (14%), according to the report from the payments processor. . . .
The AI Upload: 44% Say AI Will Manage Payments; Visa Readies for AI-to-Business Commerce
Digital Transactions News – April 2, 2026
As artificial intelligence continues to work its way into more facets of commerce, consumers and businesses may not be ready to go all in just yet. That day may come, however, if a report from Visa Inc. and another from Aevi prove accurate.
First, Aevi, a Germany-based payments platform, found that 59% of U.S. consumers it surveyed fear losing control over how or when payments are made if AI is managing them. Still, within the next decade, 44% of U.S. consumers believe AI agents will manage everyday payments for them.
That may seem contradictory because 51% of Americans say they wouldn’t feel comfortable with an organization using AI to manage money on their behalf. . . .