Payments News Update – September 26, 2025
Legal and Regulatory Developments
SPOTLIGHT:
Payments Dive – September 23, 2025
Companies battling payments fraud need better information- and data-sharing, enhanced consumer education and help from telecommunications and social media companies, according to suggestions this month in response to a federal call for ideas to tackle the problem.
Those were among the recommendations within dozens of comments filed by payments companies, banks, trade and consumer groups in response to a June request for information from the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
As payments fraud has become a growing industry concern, bank regulators requested input on ways to address the problem, with a particular focus on check fraud. The comment period, which closed Sept. 18, drew close to 200 comments. . . .
The Sydney Morning Herald – September 25, 2025
Reserve Bank plans to drive down the fees on credit and debit card transactions will ultimately hurt Australian consumers while denying the country new technology that could make trips to supermarkets a thing of the past, one of the world’s biggest card companies has warned.
Just days after Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock rounded on commercial banks and credit card providers for their resistance to the bank’s plans, Visa said small and medium-sized businesses could pay the price for the RBA’s actions.
The Reserve wants to ban surcharges imposed by some merchants on customers who use cards to pay for goods and services in a move the bank believes will save shoppers $1.2 billion a year. . . .
Law360 – September 22, 2025 (subscription required)
A putative class of businesses does not have to arbitrate claims that American Express violated antitrust laws by effectively preventing merchants that accept credit cards from incentivizing customers to use lower-fee cards, after a Massachusetts federal court ruled it will not “close its eyes” to the “illusory” arbitration agreement.
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley’s Friday order adopts a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation denying Amex’s motion to compel arbitration in the litigation brought by three Massachusetts retailers who say the credit card company’s “anti-steering” rules for merchants cause swipe fees to rise by preventing competition.
The judge adopted the magistrate judge’s conclusion that Amex’s Merchant Operating Guide, or MOG, is illusory because it allows for the credit card company to unilaterally change the agreement without providing “fair notice” to merchants, according to the order. It also allows for retroactive changes, which is what happened in this case, the order states. . . .
Payments Dive – September 19, 2025
Many payments companies are aware that state lawmakers’ diverging prescriptions for credit card surcharging have increased operational complexity in recent years.
What casual observers in the space may not yet realize, though, is that a separate effort to ban so-called “junk fees” at both federal and state levels is creating a new source of confusion and potential risk for merchants and processors using surcharging.
New laws, rules, and regulations prohibiting “junk fees” or “drip pricing” generally require inclusion of any mandatory fees in the initial price that is advertised. . . .
CNBC– September 18, 2025
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and other crypto executives took to Capitol Hill this week as part of a regulatory showdown between the industry and banks with potentially trillions at stake.
Banking advocacy groups are urging lawmakers to prohibit crypto exchanges like Coinbase from offering customers rewards that are structured like interest payments banks offer.
“I’m not sure why the banks would want to bring that up again at this point, but they should have to compete on a level playing field in crypto,” Armstrong told CNBC on Wednesday. . . .
Industry Developments
SPOTLIGHT:
PaymentsJournal – September 22, 2025
In the United States, digital wallets are often associated with big tech firms like Apple and Google. However, the European Union has launched a new program that could not only lay the foundation for government-issued wallets but also be the blueprint for widespread global adoption of digital identification programs.
As Christopher Miller, Emerging Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, detailed in the report Digital ID Adoption Requires Digital ID Acceptance: How Payments Can Lead the Way, the EU digital wallet mandate is one of many forces driving the momentum behind digital IDs.
More important, this movement has created a significant opportunity for payment providers to gain traction in a competitive market. . . .
The Wall Street Journal – September 18, 2025 (subscription may be required)
Membership still has its privileges—now at a higher price.
American Express is raising the annual fee on its Platinum credit card to $895, from $695, effective Thursday. The company said the card will now come with more than $3,500 in annual benefits, including credits of $400 for restaurants and $600 for hotels. It previously offered over $1,500 in rewards.
This overhaul is the latest advance in the battle for affluent cardholders and the spending they rack up. This summer, the four biggest U.S. credit-card issuers—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Capital One Financial and Amex—all unveiled perks for their premium cards. As the companies issue fewer cards to consumers with lower credit scores, they are betting that wealthier customers will accept ever-higher fees in exchange for ever-fancier perks. . . .