Payments News Update – July 3, 2025
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Mastercard, Visa’s Merchant Fees Breach Competition Law, UK Tribunal Rules
Reuters – June 27, 2025
Global payments processors Visa and Mastercard’s default multilateral interchange fees which are charged to retailers infringe competition law, a London tribunal ruled on Friday in the latest round of the long-running legal saga.
London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal unanimously ruled that Visa and Mastercard’s multilateral interchange fees breach European competition law, in a ruling in linked lawsuits brought by hundreds of merchants.
David Scott, global managing partner of law firm Scott+Scott, which represented the claimants, said the ruling was “a significant win for all merchants who have been paying excessive interchange fees to Visa and Mastercard”. . . .
The States’ Battle to Regulate Interchange
Digital Transactions Magazine – July 1, 2025
Legislation to regulate card interchange has been bouncing around statehouses for nearly two decades. Until recently, those efforts have been unsuccessful and sporadic, with only a few bills emerging annually.
No longer. Since Illinois in 2024 became the first state to pass an interchange law, a trend among other states to regulate interchange has shifted into overdrive. In the past year, such bills have been introduced or previewed before lawmakers in 22 states, according to the Electronic Transactions Association.
Of those state legislatures, 13 remain in session. Illinois voted to delay implementation of its Interchange Fee Prohibition Act for a year, to July 1, 2026. . . .
The Government’s Apple Antitrust Lawsuit Is Still On
The Verge – June 30, 2025
The US Department of Justice notched an initial win in its antitrust case against Apple today, with a federal judge rejecting Apple’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit outright. The government’s allegations are “sufficient to demonstrate Apple’s specific intent to monopolize the smartphone and performance smartphone market,“ Judge Julien Neals wrote in an opinion on Monday.
Apple filed to dismiss the government’s lawsuit in August 2024, arguing that the Justice Department failed to show that Apple monopolized the smartphone market or acted in an anticompetitive manner. The lawsuit was based on the “outlandish” premise that Apple’s success comes from “intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats,” the company wrote. . . .
Fintech Group Urges Court to Uphold CFPB’s Open Banking Rule
American Banker – June 30, 2025 (subscription required)
The Financial Technology Association filed a motion for summary judgment in federal court late Sunday, defending a final rule on consumer financial data rights that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Trump administration refused to uphold.
The FTA said in a court filing that consumers cannot share their data without easy access from banks.
Fintechs and banks, through their respective trade groups, are litigating over the rule on consumer financial data rights, also known as 1033 for its section in the Dodd-Frank Act or the open banking rule. . . .
NY Crafts BNPL Rules
Payments Dive – June 27, 2025
New York financial regulators have begun discussions with BNPL providers and others to formulate new rules for the buy now, pay later industry, the state’s top financial regulator told a fintech panel last week.
“We’re accomplishing a number of objectives, all at the same time, making a rule that is fair and balanced, based on data and evidence, so that it can be a good rule for industry and for consumers,” said Superintendent Adrienne Harris of the New York Department of Financial Services.
She spoke Wednesday at the Financial Technology Association’s annual CEO Summit in Washington D.C. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT: New Merchant-Focused Payments Newsletter Debuts
Payments Roundup – June 2025
June 2025 marks the inaugural quarterly newsletter of Payments Roundup, focusing on practical issues affecting the merchant community. From its introductory post:
This is the first edition of Payments Roundup, the first and only newsletter focused on payments and designed expressly for merchants. Payments Roundup is brought to you by MDDT Innovations, LLC[,] . . . a partnership consisting of four senior payments experts, three of whom worked at prominent U.S. merchants in a variety of roles, including roles responsible for payment acceptance.
Today, the cost of payments is typically one of the highest costs for merchants, with only the cost of goods sold and payroll exceeding the costs of payment acceptance. . . . Faced with a broken market for payments, merchants have few means to address or mitigate their rising costs. Litigation, education, and merchant collaboration focused on sharing best practices and innovation constitute the most effective approaches. This newsletter is intended to foster all of these approaches. . . .
You can subscribe to the Payments Roundup newsletter here.
Visa, Mastercard Race to Capture a $253 Billion Crypto Threat
Bloomberg – July 1, 2025 (subscription may be required)
A turf war is breaking out in the vast world of digital payments — and the incumbents are suddenly on defense.
Tech firms and crypto start-ups are moving in on territory long dominated by Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., powered by a new type of currency — the stablecoin — and a pitch merchants can’t ignore: lower fees, faster settlement and a way to bypass the big two altogether.
It’s a tech threat and a financial threat. Digital tokens, which are typically pegged to the dollar, allow consumers to pay merchants directly from their crypto wallets — without routing payments through a bank or card network. . . .
The Six Trends Quickly Reshaping the Payments Industry in 2025
Retail TouchPoints – June 30, 2025
There’s never been a more exciting time in the world of payments. Innovation is happening at breakneck speed, open banking is tearing down data silos and partnerships are forming between traditional financial institutions and fintechs on a global scale. Whether you’re a global retail chain, ecommerce brand, or online marketplace, changes in the payment landscape will have a profound impact on your business.
Here are six important trends you can’t afford to ignore . . . .
It’s a New Era for Capital One. Amex and Chase Are in Its Sights.
The Wall Street Journal – June 27, 2025 (subscription may be required)
Capital One Financial once featured gnarly barbarians threatening high interest rates in its ads. More recently, it has featured Taylor Swift at an airport lounge.
But the real work is now happening behind the scenes, as the credit-card giant embarks on its own new era.
Last month, Capital One completed its $35 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services. That greatly expanded its size and brought a valuable new asset: the Discover card network. The market is just beginning to reckon with what that means for its business. . . .
Visa and FIS to Offer Financial Institutions Value-Added Payment Capabilities
PYMNTS – June 26, 2025
Visa and FIS expanded their partnership to offer new value-added payment capabilities to financial institutions of all sizes.
The new offerings will include stop payment services that enable cardholders and call centers to halt recurring payments to merchants, a wallet link that pushes an issuer’s branded digital card to the customer’s digital wallet, and eCommerce fraud mitigation that gives issuers increased eCommerce transaction approval rates and helps eliminate the financial liability of chargebacks due to fraudulent purchases, the companies said in a Thursday (June 26) press release. . . .
FedNow Delivers New Risk Management Tools
Payments Dive – June 26, 2025
FedNow raised the transaction limit for real-time payments to $1 million on Tuesday, from $500,000, the Federal Reserve said in a website post.
The Fed has also added new security features, enabling financial firms to limit the dollar amount and transaction speed depending on the customer segment. Banks can now customize how much money their long-standing business customers or individual account holders can send instantly through the network, the Fed said.
“These new value-added features offer FedNow participants more options to customize their instant payments profile, adding to the suite of available tools that allow financial institutions to tailor activity according to risk management needs and customer activity,” Mark Gould, chief payments executive for Federal Reserve Financial Services, said in the post. . . .