Payments News Update – August 1, 2025
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT:
Reuters – July 28, 2025 (subscription may be required)
The New Zealand government on Monday proposed to ban surcharges on most in-store payments made using debit and credit cards from May next year, a move it said could save roughly NZ$150 million ($90.2 million) for Kiwi consumers.
The plan follows the decision last year by New Zealand’s Commerce Commission to lower fees that local businesses pay to accept Visa and Mastercard payments.
“We are scrapping surcharges at the till. New Zealanders are paying up to NZ$150 million in surcharges every year. That’s money that could be saved or spent elsewhere,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters. . . .
9to5Mac – July 29, 2025
The US Department of Justice formally sued Apple in March 2024, accusing the company of having a “smartphone monopoly.”
Apple has voiced its opposition to the case many times over the last year. Now, it has officially filed its answer to the DOJ’s antitrust complaint, pushing back forcefully against the allegations.
As a refresher, the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit focuses on five major aspects of the iPhone experience: super apps, cloud streaming games, third-party messaging apps, third-party smartwatches, and third-party digital wallets. In today’s filing, Apple says the DOJ “fundamentally misunderstands” those five things. . . .
Payments Dive – July 29, 2025
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday in a court filing that it will “substantially” rework a U.S. open banking rule, prompting a federal judge to stay proceedings in a lawsuit that banking associations filed last year to block the measure.
“In light of recent events in the marketplace, the Bureau has now decided to initiate a new rulemaking to reconsider the Rule with a view to substantially revising it and providing a robust justification,” CFPB attorneys wrote in their motion to stay the case. The bureau faced a Tuesday deadline to reply to a filing from the Financial Technology Association, which has intervened to defend the 2024 rule.
The agency plans “an accelerated rulemaking process” and said it would issue a rulemaking notice within three weeks to begin drafting a new rule. U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky granted the stay request, telling litigants to update him every 45 days. . . .
PYMNTS – July 24, 2025
Through the past few months, as cryptocurrency regulations have been reshaped by the President Donald Trump administration, crypto firms have applied for national trust bank charters, which would expand the range of services they offer.
Depending on the firm, the charters would grant the ability to settle transactions or connect directly to the Federal Reserve’s payment rails. They would let crypto firms manage assets for clients, but they would not move into insured deposits or lending activities, so they are somewhat limited in scope.
However, banks have concerns, and banking trade groups — proxies for financial institutions themselves — are pushing regulators to take a pause. . . .
North Dakota Monitor – July 23, 2025
A North Dakota truck stop wants a federal judge to find that the Federal Reserve Board violated the law by neglecting to crack down on mushrooming debit card transaction fees.
The fees — which apply every time someone swipes their debit card — are meant to reimburse banks for the cost of processing transactions. But for years, banks increased these fees to an extent that far exceeded those costs.
Congress decided to pass a law reining in banks after it learned that they were making billions off of the fees annually. The law — commonly referred to as the Durbin Amendment after U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — was adopted in 2010 as part of a package of consumer protection reforms that followed the 2008 financial crisis. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT:
Bloomberg – July 27, 2025 (subscription may be required)
Citigroup Inc. launched a premium credit card designed to rival ones offered by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and American Express Co., the latest entrant in the increasingly crowded market for cards offering high-end perks.
The ‘Strata Elite’ card will feature an annual fee of $595 — a price that the bank says can unlock almost $1,500 in value if used to its maximum potential. It offers the largest points rewards for hotels, car rentals and attractions booked on Citigroup’s travel platform, as well as restaurant dining at peak weekend times. . . .
In addition to the perks rolled out by Citigroup directly, the Strata Elite card will be the first in Mastercard Inc.’s recently announced World Legend tier of credit cards, meaning it comes with an additional suite of benefits. . . .
Digital Transactions News – July 28, 2025
PayPal Holdings Inc. early Monday launched Pay with Crypto, a cross-border payment option that instantly converts cryptocurrencies to stablecoins or fiat currencies. The new payment option provides merchants and consumers a unified platform that connects fiat and digital payments and supports more than 100 cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets, such as Coinbase and MetaMask.
The new service will enable merchants to reach more than 650 million crypto users globally, according to the crypto data aggregator, CoinGecko, PayPal says.
To help make the new payment option an attractive alternative to other cross-border payment options, PayPal says it is charging a transaction fee of 0.99%. . . .
CNBC – July 28, 2025
JPMorgan Chase said the fintech companies that help financial apps connect with traditional checking accounts are flooding the bank’s systems with unnecessary data requests.
Of 1.89 billion data requests from middlemen hitting its systems in June, only 13% were initiated by a customer for transactions, according to an internal JPMorgan memo seen by CNBC.
The majority of data pulls, known as API calls, were for purposes ranging from helping fintech companies improve their products or prevent fraud to other efforts including harvesting data for sale, said a person with knowledge of the memo. . . .
The Wall Street Journal – July 25, 2025 (subscription may be required)
Banks are making credit cards harder to get—for some customers.
Lenders opened fewer cards in the second quarter, according to earnings reports from major issuers. They raised qualification requirements for lower-end customers that tend to be at greater risk of missing payments.
It was a different story for higher-end customers, which are increasingly propelling the U.S. economy. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup introduced revamped premium credit cards in recent weeks, and American Express teased a big update to its Platinum card this fall. . . .
Digital Transactions News – July 24, 2025
Samsung Electronics America is partnering with Splitit USA Inc. to offer installment payments to Samsung wallet users. The new feature will enable Samsung wallet users to make in-store purchases using an existing Visa or Mastercard card in their wallet and pay for the purchase over time.
Samsung wallet users will have the option to split a purchase into six or eight bi-weekly payments or six or nine monthly payments, Splitit says.
The new service will start rolling out July 25 in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Credit cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA are currently not supported for installment payments, Splitit says. . . .