MasterCard Europe and European Commission reach understanding on interchange fees
MasterCard Europe and the European Commission announced they had reached an understanding on cross-border interchange fees, to be effective 1 July 2009.
As part of the understanding, MasterCard Europe announced that its intra-European Economic Area cross-border interchange fees would be no more than 30 basis points for credit cards and 20 basis points for debit cards.
The opening remarks from the press conference by Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, can be found here. MasterCard Europe’s own media release can be found here.
Obama signs Credit CARD Reform Act of 2009
On 22 May 2009, US President Barack Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009. This legislation introduces a number of consumer protection measures including:
• Prohibiting certain fee and interest charge practices
• Restricting new credit card solicitations to persons under the age of 21
• Restricting 'dormancy fees' on gift cards without clear disclosures being made on the card
Most of the provisions are not in effect until early 2010. The full text of the Act signed by President Obama can be found here.
Canadian Payments Association launches draft long-term strategy
The Canadian Payments Association (CPA) has released its draft long-term strategy for comment. The draft strategy, called Vision 2020, sets out a series of broad strategies for both the CPA and the Canadian payments system. The CPA outlines a 'four-point' payment strategy including promoting electronic payments; driving domestic and international interoperability standards; modernising CPA’s enabling framework and systems; and delivering value-added services to CPA members.
The CPA has also released three companion research/benchmarking papers. These are on payment association governance, funding and membership; core payment systems; and international interoperability standards.
The draft strategy and companion research/benchmarking papers are available on the CPA website.