Welcome to the News View for "Financial Regulators".
Here, on these archive pages, you'll find all of the articles on Payments News for Financial Regulators listed in date sequence beginning with the most recent article at the top of the page.
Click here for a complete listing of what's available in the Payments News Archive - organized by both posting date and subject category.
Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton summarizes and reacts to the CFPB Final Remittance Rule that has been issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "This rule has considerable implications with both intended and potentially unintended consequences."
On November 17-18, 2011, the Retail Payments Risk Forum of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta hosted a conference, “The Role of Government in Payments Risk and Fraud.” They have now made some of the presentations from this conference available on the conference website.
The Boston Fed has published a Public Policy Discussion Paper entitled "Account-to-Account Electronic Money Transfers: Recent Developments in the United States".
The paper analyzes the emerging decentralized market in which A2A money transfers are becoming available in the United States and compares it with the A2A market in other countries. The paper constructs analytical examples to explain and evaluate the structure of the emerging U.S. market and discusses possible policy actions that may enhance the use of A2A money transfers in the United States.
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3.75% in October. Revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 0.5%, and nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 5.25%."
"Given the growing popularity of e-commerce and m-commerce over the past few years, remote payments have become commonplace. Unfortunately, remote payments fraud has grown in response. On September 26, 2011, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Secure Remote Payment Council (SRPc) co-hosted a symposium to discuss strategies that help reduce such forms of fraud." Download the Chicago Fed Letter summarizing the symposium here.
The National Retail Federation, the Food Marketing Institute, the National Association of Convenience Stores and two retailers announced they have filed a lawsuit in federal court saying the Federal Reserve failed to follow the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.
“The Federal Reserve was required by law to come up with swipe fees that were ‘reasonable’ and ‘proportional’ but what we got were neither,” NRF Senior Vice President and CEO General Counsel Mallory Duncan said. “Instead, the Fed allowed themselves to be influenced by the very banks they are supposed to regulate and raised the originally proposed cap to include expenses the law said were not allowed. In doing so, they literally gave away half the savings that could have been seen by merchants and their customers. We want them to go back and follow the law this time.”
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 1.5% in the third quarter. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 3.25%, while nonrevolving credit increased 3.75%. In September, consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3.5%."
The Chicago Fed has published an essay by Katy Jacob and Kirstin Wells entitled, "Evaluating the potential of immediate funds transfer for general-purpose payments in the United States".
Immediate funds transfer (IFT) is a convenient, certain, secure, and low-cost means of electronically transferring money between bank accounts with no or minimal delay in receivers’ receipt and use of funds. Yet IFT is not widely available in the U.S. This article summarizes discussions on the potential for IFT in the U.S. held at the Symposium on Immediate Funds Transfer for General-Purpose Payments, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, on September 7, 2011.
Earlier this year, "the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop to discuss insolvency risk in the network-branded prepaid-card value chain, and, in particular, whether the insolvency of a key participant in the value chain poses a threat to consumers and banks." Philip Keitel has recently published a paper (PDF) that summarizes the information presented at the workshop.
Joanna Stavins of the Boston Fed has published a Public Policy Brief entitled "Potential Effects of an Increase in Debit Card Fees".
Recently announced changes to debit card interchange fees could lead to an increase in the cost of debit cards to consumers. This brief analyzes the potential effects of an increase in debit card fees or in bank account fees by using the results of the 2008 and 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC).
The Federal Reserve has released a set of frequently asked questions (and answers) about "General-Use Prepaid Cards and Circumvention and Evasion". Given the Regulation II exemptions for certain reloadable prepaid cards, there seems to be a lot of industry questions about what exactly can be done with a general-use prepaid card and still have the card considered exempt from Regulation II interchange caps.
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 6.0% in July 2011. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 5.25%,
while nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 11.25%."
On July 11 and 12, the Payment Cards Center of the Philadelphia Fed hosted a conference, “Government Use of the Payment Card System: Issuance, Acceptance, and Regulation.” They have now made some of the presentations from this conference available on the conference website.
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 4.25% in the second quarter. In June, consumer credit increased at an annual rate
of 7.75%, with revolving credit increasing at a rate of 8% and nonrevolving credit increasing at a rate of 7.5%."
"At the Chicago Fed’s 2011 Payments Conference, held on May 19–20, participants discussed how changes in consumers’ behavior in the wake of the financial crisis and recession can translate into opportunities and challenges for both traditional and nascent payment providers. They also focused on the impact of payment innovations and new consumer protection regulations." This special issue of the Chicago Fed Letter is now online.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued its final rule that "amends Bank Secrecy Act Regulations – Definitions and Other Regulations Relating to Prepaid Access, amending the money services businesses (MSB) rules and establishing a more comprehensive regulatory approach for prepaid access. In summary, the rule puts in place suspicious activity reporting, and customer and transactional information collection requirements on providers and sellers of certain types of prepaid access similar to other categories of MSBs."
The Dodd-Frank Act requires the U.S. Federal Reserve to report annually to congress on the "use of general-use prepaid cards in federal, state, and local government-administered payment programs and the interchange transaction fees and cardholder fees charged with respect to the use of such general-use prepaid cards." The Fed has published its first report.
The Federal Reserve Board has published lists of institutions that are subject to, and exempt from, the debit card interchange fee standards in Regulation II.
These lists, available at the Fed website, are intended to help payment card networks and others determine which issuers qualify for the statutory exemption from interchange fee standards. The statute exempts any debit card issuer that, together with its affiliates, has assets of less than $10 billion.
There are currently 14,842 institutions that are exempt and 572 that are subject to debit interchange fee standards. The Board plans to update the lists annually.
The Federal Reserve has released a report (PDF) that contains 2010 payment and account information about more than 1,000 agreements between institutions of higher education or affiliated organizations and credit card issuers, as well as an online database that includes the full text of each agreement that was in effect during 2010.
The report and the database is a result of The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (Credit CARD Act) that requires issuers to submit to the Board annually their agreements with educational institutions or affiliated organizations, such as alumni associations. For each agreement, issuers are also required to submit information regarding payments made to the institution or organization and the number of accounts opened under the agreement.
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 2.5% percent in May 2011. Revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 5%, and nonrevoling credit increased at an annual rate of 1.25%."
The Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve have issued the final rule governing debit card interchange fees, the fraud prevention adjustment, and routing and exclusivity restrictions. To summarize the final rule:
The full staff memorandum to the Board of Governors, the interim rule on the fraud prevention adjustment, and the final rule (Regulation II, Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing) are available online.
For a complete analysis of the final rule, join us for a special 90 minute Glenbrook webinar that explores the impact of various participants in the payments ecosystem. Wednesday, July 6th, 10:30AM - 12:00 PST, $149. Register Now.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has issued a supplement to the Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment guidance, issued in October 2005. "The purpose of the supplement is to reinforce the risk-management framework described in the original guidance and update the FFIEC member agencies' supervisory expectations regarding customer authentication, layered security, and other controls in the increasingly hostile online environment."
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that " consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3% in April 2011. Nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of
5.25%, while revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 1.5%."
The U.S. Federal Reserve has announced the Board of Governors will issue its final rules on the Durbin Amendment at 3:30pm EDT, June 29th. The discussion agenda includes debit card interchange fees, the fraud prevention adjustment, routing and exclusivity restrictions, and related matters.
The meeting will be webcast, and meeting documentation will be available 20 minutes ahead of time. Links to both will be available from www.federalreserve.gov.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has published a paper entitled, "Adopting, Using, and Discarding Paper and Electronic Payment Instruments: Variation by Age and Race".
This paper uses data from the 2008 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice to discuss the adoption, use, and discarding of various common payment instruments. Using a nationally representative sample of individual-level data, it presents evidence in unparalleled detail about how consumers use different payment instruments. Most interestingly, it displays robust evidence of significant age- and race-related differences in payments choices.
The Consumer Payments Research Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has released the public use data files for the 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice.
This survey fills a gap in knowledge about the role of consumers in the transformation of payments from paper to electronic by providing a broad-based assessment of U.S. consumers’ adoption and use of nine payment instruments, including cash.The files available for free download here.
On the wires:
On the web:
Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated.
The Department of Justice has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today to block the proposed acquisition of Hypercom by VeriFone.
The department said that the proposed deal would substantially lessen competition in the sale of point-of-sale (POS) terminals in the United States, resulting in higher prices and reduced innovation, quality, product variety, and service.
The Federal Reserve Board has requested public comment on "a proposed rule that would create new protections for consumers who send remittance transfers to recipients located in a foreign country... The proposal is being made under Regulation E (Electronic Fund Transfers) pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act."
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that "consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3 percent in March, with revolving and nonrevolving credit increasing at a similar rate. In the first quarter, consumer credit also increased at an annual rate of 3 percent."
Contacts:
Compilation Copyright © 2002 - 2012 Glenbrook Partners LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use Privacy Policy RSS Feed 
Follow Payments News on Twitter for Real-Time Updates
