MasterCard Europe (MCE) has announced that "as of June 21, 2008 MasterCard is temporarily repealing its current MasterCard and Maestro intra-EEA cross-border consumer card interchange fees in conformity with the European Commission's December 19, 2007 decision. MCE said it will continue its dialogue with the Commission services about an interchange fee methodology that the Commission services believe is consistent with the decision. MCE also said it will continue to pursue its appeal of the decision to the European Court of First Instance, which it filed on March 1."   » Continue Reading

Nielsen Mobile reports that commerce over mobile devices such as cell phones is accelerating in the US. According to Nielsen, "9 million US mobile subscribers say they have used their mobile phone to pay for goods or services, and half of all data users (49 percent) say they expect to participate in mobile commerce in the future."   » Continue Reading

Javien has announced that Javien Micropay now helps merchants meet Visa’s new guidelines for online micropayment transactions of Visa credit, debit or prepaid cards. Additionally, Javien says Micropay provides an auditable, provable method of managing online micropayment aggregations that conforms to Visa’s new rules.   » Continue Reading

Virgin Atlantic Airways has launched a new rewards credit card, the Virgin Atlantic American Express Card issued by Bank of America which earns 3 miles for every $1 spent on Virgin Atlantic purchases and also offers "the opportunity to redeem points for exclusive rewards such as a trip into space."   » Continue Reading

The UK member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, with input from its banking partners around the world, has published "Banking in 2050: How Big Will the Emerging Markets Get?" The paper examines "the possible changes in the scale of the banking sector between now and 2050; our proxy was the relative growth of domestic credit markets. The results are thought provoking; they highlight the pace of change and provide some scale to the size of the opportunity and challenge."

Yesterday, the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on the subject of ""Short-Change for Consumers and Short-Shrift for Congress? the Supreme Court's Treatment of Laws That Protect Americans".

Among those testifying was Robert Lawless, Professor of Law and the Galowich-Huizenga Faculty Scholar at the University of Illinois College of Law. (Lawless is also one of the active bloggers on the Credit Slips blog.) In his prepared testimony for yesterday's hearing, he discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Serv. Corp. - noting that national consumer lenders in the US operate in an environment that is free of usury restrictions because of the Marquette decision.

An 2004 paper by Mark Furletti titled "The Debate Over the National Bank Act and the Preemption of State Efforts to Regulate Credit Cards" and published by the Payments Card Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia provides more background on the federal pre-emption issue.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has announced is has issued a draft notice proposing to revoke a notification by eBay International on 11 April 2008. Under the notification, eBay proposes to mandate the use of PayPal for almost all transactions on the eBay site.   » Continue Reading

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