PAYMENTS NEWS
Fed proposes reduced check services
Dec 9, 2025
The Federal Reserve proposed scaling back legacy check services as check usage continues to decline, shifting more volume to private-sector processors and streamlining its own operations. The changes aim to reduce costs and modernize settlement processes. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Evolving check infrastructure may affect how quickly and reliably check payments clear, which can influence back-office operations, fraud management, and customer payment options.
How the penny shortage complicates New York's cash protection law
Dec 5, 2025
New York State has a new law requiring retailers to accept cash, creating a new challenge for merchants that are still awaiting guidance on how to manage a penny shortage.
Hybrid AI Bridges Decision-Making Transparency Gap
Dec 2, 2025
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes part of everyday business operations, companies rethink how they want these systems to behave. AI models generate quick predictions but often struggle to explain why the model chose a specific outcome. That lack of clarity leads to mistakes, customer friction and regulatory scrutiny. To avoid these problems, companies now turn to hybrid AI, an approach that blends machine learning with clear rules, human judgment and reasoning steps that people can trace.
Market Intelligence The key difference between a 'tokenized deposit' and a 'deposit token'
Dec 2, 2025
Noelle Acheson explains the significant differences between tokenized deposits and deposit tokens, and why it matters for the future of banking and payments.
How MCP Turns Passive AI Assistants Into Active Enterprise Agents
Dec 2, 2025
The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open standard introduced by Anthropic in late 2024 to make artificial intelligence (AI) systems more useful in real-world business settings. At its core, MCP allows AI models such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to securely connect to business tools, databases and workflows.
Debit card rewards are coming back in vogue
Nov 14, 2025
WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: This signals a shift: loyalty programs tied to debit (not just credit) are gaining traction, meaning merchants that participate in or support airline/hospitality loyalty ecosystems should anticipate broader competition and more entry points for consumer engagement beyond traditional card tiers, opening new opportunities (and risks) in how loyalty and payments interplay in your omnichannel strategy.
Senators Back Open Banking Rule
Nov 21, 2025
A group of Democratic Senators urged the CFPB to reinstate and strengthen the “Personal Financial Data Rights” rule under the Dodd‑Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, citing concerns that large banks are limiting consumer data access and charging excessive fees, hindering competition in the open-banking ecosystem. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: A strong open-banking rule helps merchants by fostering a more competitive ecosystem, lowering friction of onboarding and enabling smarter payment flows.
Banks plead for federal guidance as penny shortage spreads
Nov 21, 2025
Banks are facing a growing shortage of the one-cent coin as production has largely stopped, and over 100 of the Federal Reserve’s 165 coin-distribution terminals are neither supplying nor accepting pennies, leaving retailers unable to give exact change and banks unable to supply them. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Lack of federal guidance puts merchants at potential legal risk (for example around equal pricing for cash versus benefit-cards) and may increase your operational complexity and cost.
Banks face challenges ahead of Saturday’s ISO 20022 deadline
Nov 21, 2025
Banks are scrambling as the global ISO 20022 migration deadline approaches. Legacy systems, manual processes and incomplete infrastructure upgrades are causing widespread concern ahead of SWIFT’s shut-off of older message formats. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Although this is a bank-side story, merchants must pay attention: richer, more structured payment data means smoother reconciliation, fewer exceptions and faster settlement.
New York eyes rounding rule for retailers as U.S. cancels pennies
Nov 20, 2025
New York lawmakers introduced the New Yorkers for Common Cents Act, which would require all in-store cash totals to be rounded to the nearest five cents as the state moves away from using pennies, while digital and card transactions would stay the same. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: This creates a consistent statewide rule for handling cash payments, reducing confusion at checkout and helping merchants avoid compliance issues as penny circulation declines.
White House nominates Vought aide to lead Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
Nov 20, 2025
The White House nominated OMB official Stuart Levenbach to head the CFPB, a largely procedural move meant to extend Russell Vought’s ability to serve as acting director even as he signals major shifts at the agency, including the possibility of closing it and noting funding could run out in early 2026. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: CFPB leadership directly shapes oversight of BNPL, digital wallets, open banking, and other payments-related rules. Uncertainty at the bureau could affect future compliance expectations and the regulatory environment in which merchants operate.
Visa CFO trumpets legal pact
Nov 13, 2025
Visa and Mastercard have reached a proposed settlement with U.S. merchants rooted in a long-running dispute over alleged excessive interchange fees. One key change: the “honor all cards” rule (which required merchants to accept all Visa/Mastercard cards) would be removed, giving merchants more control over which cards they accept. Visa estimates that formal approval and implementation won’t happen until after September 2026. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: This agreement could give merchants greater acceptance flexibility and provide more control over which cards they accept.
Trump administration declares CFPB funding illegal
Nov 12, 2025
The decision, disclosed in a court filing, puts the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on track to shut down in ‘early 2026’ when its remaining cash runs out.
Why a Visa-Mastercard legal settlement could lead to your rewards credit card getting declined
Nov 12, 2025
Visa and Mastercard have proposed a settlement in their long-running legal dispute with merchants and retailers over how much they charge merchants to accept their cards.
Visa, Mastercard reach $38 billion swipe fee settlement, draw opposition
Nov 10, 2025
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Visa (V.N), opens new tab and Mastercard (MA.N), opens new tab announced a revised $38 billion settlement with merchants who accused the card networks of charging too much to accept their credit cards, hoping to satisfy a judge who rejected a smaller accord as inadequate.
U.S. Bank and Mastercard Debut BNPL Alternative ‘Split Card’
Nov 6, 2025
U.S. Bank has debuted a credit card that converts purchases into monthly payment plans.
China’s Analog RRAM Chip Shatters GPU Limits with 1,000× Speed Boost
Nov 7, 2025
What if a century-old computing concept suddenly leapfrogged the most advanced GPUs on the planet? That’s exactly what researchers at Peking University have demonstrated with a new analog processor built from RRAM arrays-a device that, in specific workloads, delivers up to 1,000 times the throughput of Nvidia’s H100 and AMD’s Vega 20, while consuming about 100 times less energy.
Google Identifies New Forms of AI-Powered Cyberattacks
Nov 6, 2025
State-sponsored threat fraudsters have developed malware powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that can not only generate malicious scripts but also “change its code on the fly” to get around detection systems, Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a Wednesday (Nov. 5) blog post.
Judge blocks open banking rule enforcement
Oct 30, 2025
The preliminary injunction in a federal lawsuit enjoins a U.S. open banking framework until the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issues a new rule.
Bad Customer Service Drives 85% of Consumers to Seek Chargebacks
Oct 30, 2025
For years, merchants treated fraud prevention like seasonal window dressing — a necessary expense to get through the holiday rush. But this year’s PYMNTS Intelligence-Worldpay Payments Optimization Tracker, “Securing the Season: Fighting Fraud Without Losing Customers,” shows that strategy no longer works. What began as a December problem has evolved into a structural one, where the same tools that keep criminals out also define how shoppers experience trust, speed and personalization all year long.