Payments News Update – May 8, 2026
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT: Gas Stations Bound to Visa Swipe Fee Deal, 2nd Circ. Says
Law360 – May 4, 2026 (subscription required)
A Second Circuit panel refused Monday to let a group of gas stations separately sue Visa and Mastercard over their swipe fees, holding the would-be plaintiffs cannot get out of a $5.6 billion antitrust settlement the credit card giants inked with merchants.
The 2019 deal is one of two Mastercard and Visa have inked in the long-running case, in addition to a broader agreement for sweeping changes now under review in New York federal court.
The Second Circuit panel said Monday that a New York federal judge rightly held the gas stations to that 2019 deal, rejecting appellate arguments that the agreement only included “direct” payors —that in the gas stations’ telling meant Chevron, Shell, BP and other gasoline “suppliers” — rather than the gas stations themselves and that the settlement did not cover such indirect state law claims. . . .
Colorado Advances a Measure to Eliminate Interchange Fees on Sales Tax
Digital Transactions News – May 7, 2026
A Colorado bill that would eliminate sales tax as part of the interchange fee calculation has moved to Gov. Jared Polis’s desk for review following passage Wednesday in the Colorado House. It passed a state Senate vote last week.
Similar in some ways to the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which is scheduled to become effective July 1, the Colorado bill has important differences. Unlike the Illinois law, which prohibits interchange on sales tax and tips, the Colorado bill excludes only sales tax. Also, the Illinois law applies to all financial institutions; in Colorado, the bill applies to those with $60 billion or more in assets.
The earliest the Colorado measure could take effect is Jan. 1, 2028, unless voters determine otherwise via a referendum. . . .
PayPal, Mastercard, Visa Face UK Competition Probe Over Digital Wallet Deals
Reuters – May 6, 2026
PayPal, Mastercard and Visa are being investigated for alleged anti-competitive conduct linked to the funding and usage of PayPal’s digital wallet, in a rare move by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The FCA, which infrequently uses its powers to enforce competition law among financial services firms, said on Wednesday that it had reached no conclusions about whether UK competition law had been broken.
The announcement came after PayPal issued a filing stating it had received notices in March of investigations and related requests for information from the FCA about its contractual agreements with the two card giants. . . .
The Fees That Fund Your Rewards Credit Card Are Facing a State Battle
The Wall Street Journal – May 1, 2026 (subscription may be required)
The fight between banks and merchants over the credit-card fees that power your rewards cards is going local, opening the door to a future where your card only works in some states.
An Illinois law set to go into effect this summer would ban credit-card fees on taxes and tips, the latest flashpoint in a battle that could shape the regulation and acceptance of credit cards.
Merchants, who pay a portion of every transaction to the bank issuing the card used, hate the fees and have been fighting for years to break the system apart. . . .
Europe Moves to Break Visa and Mastercard’s Grip — But Not Everyone Agrees
Euronews – May 1, 2026
Europe’s payment system is on the brink of its biggest shake-up in decades.
A digital euro, a push for sovereignty from US payment giants and a bitter fight between banks and Brussels are all coming to a head — and the outcome could affect how Europeans conduct even the simplest day-to-day payments.
The digital euro is electronic cash, backed by the European Central Bank (ECB) and designed to sit alongside banknotes and the services offered by commercial lenders. . . .
Pizzeria Urges 6th Circ. to Strike Fed’s Debit Swipe-Fee Cap
Law360 – May 1, 2026 (subscription required)
A Kentucky restaurant is urging the Sixth Circuit to overturn the Federal Reserve Board’s cap on debit-card swipe fees for large banks, arguing the cap was set too high and was wrongly upheld by a lower court last year.
Linney’s Pizza LLC filed a brief Wednesday in its appeal of a Kentucky federal judge’s ruling that upheld the Fed’s swipe-fee cap, known as Regulation II, finding it was neither “contrary to law” nor” arbitrary and capricious” as the restaurant had alleged in a 2022 lawsuit.
The Frankfort, Kentucky, pizzeria’s suit accused the Fed of botching the design of the cap, which implemented provisions from the Dodd-Frank Act and the more-specific Durbin Amendment that sought to rein in debit-card swipe fees by requiring them to be “reasonable and proportional” to banks’ processing costs. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT: US Real-Time Payments Hit High-Growth Phase as Use Cases Multiply
PYMNTS – April 30, 2026
The United States is a big payments market. But big doesn’t always equal fast.
And for years, the U.S. has been an outlier in the global race toward instant money movement, watching markets like the U.K., India and Brazil build real-time payment systems that quickly became foundational.
That lag, however, is lessening. Findings in the latest edition of the “Real-Time Payments World Map,” a PYMNTS Intelligence collaboration with The Clearing House (TCH), reveal that the U.S. real-time payments ecosystem has entered a new phase defined not by instant payment experimentation, but by adoption and scale. . . .
Apple Plans to Let Users Build Their Own Passes in iOS 27 Wallet App
Bloomberg – May 4, 2026 (subscription may be required)
Apple Inc. is preparing a new “Create a Pass” feature for its next major iPhone software update, allowing users to build and customize their own digital tickets and gift cards within the Wallet app.
Today, the Wallet app is primarily used to access passes from third-party apps, along with credit and debit cards for Apple Pay, digital keys and retailer gift cards. But many services still don’t offer passes that are compatible with the Wallet platform.
To address that gap, Apple has developed a pass-building tool for iOS 27 Wallet, according to people with knowledge of the matter. . . .
Amex Pushes for Agentic Standards
Payments Dive – April 29, 2026
American Express aims to lead the payments industry toward a shared standard for agentic commerce, partly by setting an example with its agentic offering for protecting consumers who use the artificial intelligence-powered transactions.
That was the takeaway for attendees at a Nacha Smarter Faster Payments panel discussion Tuesday where two Amex executives provided more information on the card company’s evolving agentic service.
The world of agentic commerce involves AI agents responding to consumer requests for specified purchases. . . .