Finance

In widely anticipated legislation on Bitcoin, Canada is regulating digital currency businesses under existing rules for money movement and California is updating its laws to legalize the use of alternative currencies.

American Express has hired Laureen Seeger as its new general counsel.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced his support for a proposal in the state legislature to regulate prepaid debit cards used by employers to pay wages.

Merchants seeking a court ruling that would cause the Federal Reserve Board to re-establish debit cap fees at a lower rate want more time to consider bringing the case to the Supreme Court.

Five years after the enactment of major reforms to the U.S. credit-card market, industry opposition has quietly faded into acceptance. Bankers certainly aren't celebrating the 2009 legislation, but they're not condemning it, either.

As state regulators take more interest in Bitcoin, third-party vendors are looking to apply the expertise they built in other markets to digital currency. One such vendor, Strevus, has a background in securitization, which is another volatile and risky market.

A former American Express Co. employee was fined S$24,000 ($19,150) by a Singapore court after he was convicted of misusing client data.

Retailers have been entangled in a legal showdown with Visa and MasterCard over swipe-fee rates for nine years now, and despite the approval of a $5.7 billion settlement in December, the battle is far from over.

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., unveiled legislation on April 2 to increase fraud protections for debit card customers.

Lawmakers keep trying to move legislation aimed at strengthening data security even if they are still not finished upbraiding retailers for recent breaches.

The banking industry's victory on debit card interchange fees seems likely to be the decisive turn in a high-stakes legal dispute with retailers.

A federal appeals court panel ruled today that the existing restrictions on debit card swipe fees should largely stand, turning back a challenge by retailers who argued that banks are still earning too much money from the fees.

Fiserv, which operates the Accel debit network, spent two years evaluating the best way to route EMV debit transactions in compliance with federal mandates – but it abstained from working with the Debit Network Alliance, which is committed to the same cause.

The Electronic Transactions Association is lobbying Congress to enact a uniform national data breach reporting standard that would replace a welter of contradictory state and local rules.

JPMorgan Chase is the first bank to adopt a new, standardized disclosure box for its prepaid cards that was developed by Pew Charitable Trusts.

The payment system is unexpectedly the center of attention in the financial services policy world after spending years being overshadowed by the financial crisis and other pressing issues.

Cash transaction provider PayNearMe is among the growing list of payment companies that are anxiously awaiting the higher volume of transactions that will result from the Affordable Care Act.

MasterCard has named Tim Murphy as its new general counsel and chief franchise officer.

Federal legislation is needed to enhance cyber-threat information sharing so that good-faith responsive actions and information sharing will not trigger legal liability.

Retailers are letting Congress know they support federal efforts to thwart cybercrime, while voicing their support of chip-based EMV smartcards combined with PIN authentication as a defense against future breaches.