Payments News Update – January 23, 2026
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT: White House Weighs Executive Action to Cap Credit Card Rates
Bloomberg – January 16, 2026 (subscription may be required)
The White House is weighing an executive action to enact President Donald Trump’s call for a cap on credit card interest rates, in addition to other measures seeking to ease US affordability challenges.
The plan, which is still being crafted as administration officials discuss the terms with industry and Congress, is designed to lower interest rates on credit cards as part of a broader push to reduce costs for Americans, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump’s action may also call on regulators to relax certain liquidity standards to help make the plan more attractive for the banks, said the people, who asked not to be identified citing private discussions. . . .
Wyoming Has Big Plans for Stablecoin
Banking Dive – January 21, 2026
Wyoming legislators have given the state’s new stable token an agenda focused heavily on payments issues.
The state became the first in the U.S. to publicly sell a stablecoin, the Frontier token, beginning Jan. 7, with $1.5 million in sales through Jan. 13.
Wyoming legislators have worked for several years to place their state at the forefront of digital currencies with multiple crypto-favorable laws. In 2023, lawmakers formed the Wyoming Stable Token Commission to become the first state with its own cryptocurrency, aiming to use income from FRNT to fund public schools. . . .
Merchant Lawyers Laud Surcharge Option
Payments Dive – January 20, 2026
Merchants should support a swipe-fee settlement with Visa and Mastercard because it gives them more flexibility to impose surcharges, according to plaintiffs in a 21-year-old lawsuit targeting Visa and Mastercard fees.
A proposed settlement with the two largest card networks over interchange fees and card-acceptance rules presents an opportunity to educate consumers about the costs of various cards and steer payment choices to less-expensive cards, the plaintiffs’ class counsel wrote in a court filing last week.
The parties in the swipe-fee litigation, which dates to 2005, filed their replies last week to counter objections from merchants who want a federal judge in New York to reject the pact reached in November. . . .
Why US Retailers Want New Swipe Fee Legislation
Retail Insight Network – January 18, 2026
US retail trade groups have intensified their push for swipe fee legislation as costs tied to credit card processing continue to climb.
At the centre of the debate is the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act, a proposal aimed at introducing competition in credit card processing and lowering the so-called interchange or swipe fees paid by retailers on every card transaction.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) and other industry bodies say the current system, dominated by a small number of card networks, leaves merchants with little negotiating power on fees that have become a significant overhead. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Payments Fraud Risks Burgeon With AI
Payments Dive – January 21, 2026
Combatting payments fraud isn’t likely to get easier this year, and some professionals acknowledge it could get tougher as artificial intelligence spawns new threats.
U.S. consumers and businesses remain juicy targets for fraudsters rolling victims by way of duplicitous imposter scams, check washing operations and synthetic identity schemes, among other ploys. The increasing acceptance of digital assets in the marketplace, as the Genius Act brings stablecoins into payments, may provide yet another avenue for taking advantage.
Criminal use of artificial intelligence, with its deepfake potential to sharpen fraudsters’ tricks, is expected to spool up in 2026, even as the payments industry embraces AI for agentic commerce. . . .
Exclusive: Mastercard Moves to Set the Rules for AI Commerce
Axios – January 20, 2026 (subscription may be required)
Mastercard is moving to write the rules for agentic commerce, working closely with Google and Microsoft — two companies racing to define how AI reaches checkout.
Why it matters: As AI agents start shopping and paying on consumers’ behalf, the power shift isn’t about smarter models — it’s about who controls trust, identity and payments when machines spend people’s money.
Driving the news: Mastercard is expanding its agentic commerce push and deepening partnerships with Google and Microsoft around agent standards and AI-driven checkout, the company shared exclusively with Axios on Tuesday. . . .