President-elect Donald Trump has threatened retaliatory tariffs on China if they cheat on their trading obligations. A good place to start would be China’s payment card market.

Despite the hurdles facing technology giants in offering payments services, they remain keenly interested in the sector and more traditional service providers should stay on alert.

Advocates of free trade and fighting protectionism are more likely to focus on industries like steel and agriculture, but they should also pay attention to the payments sphere.

Global trade protectionism in other countries increasingly poses an obstacle to keep the market for payments networks competitive.

Regulators have abused their role of implementing law to actually make financial policy, usurping the role of Congress in a tripartite system.

Instant electronic payments are a sine qua non of modern life. Real-time card-authorization systems were implemented in the mid-seventies and, in an era of mobile ubiquity, enable commerce anywhere, anytime. In contrast, payments between bank accounts generally aren't instant.

To help make instant payments a reality, regulators here and abroad should encourage multiple approaches, thus avoiding the temptation to mandate a single solution.

The election of a Republican president could be the first prerequisite to repealing the financial reform law, but banks still need to argue their case for why repeal is necessary.