Regulation

Green Dot Corp., which plans to go public, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month that it issued 2,208,552 shares of Class A common stock to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sparking speculation the retailer is indirectly trying to gain a toehold in banking following failed attempts to do so three years ago.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch today warned consumers about a collection scam involving individuals impersonating law enforcement officials, including claiming an affiliation with the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) Unit.

In the biggest independent lobby against the interchange amendment Navy FCU, one of three credit unions on the wrong side of the exemption from the amendment price-control provision, is calling on its 3.5 million members to urge Congress for defeat of the measure.

A Virginia couple accused of forging the wife’s grandfather’s signature on more than a dozen bogus student loan applications worth nearly a quarter million dollars were sentenced in federal court for their crime.

Credit card issuers were somewhat spared in the Federal Reserve Board’s final rules issued June 15 regarding card penalty fees, which analysts say were not as severe as some had feared.

Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and Kenny Marchant, R-Tex. released a letter Monday with the signatures of more than 100 lawmakers urging conferees to drop the interchange provision from the final reform bill.

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., on June 14 announced plans for a hearing this week examining the interchange fees the federal government pays on credit and debit card transactions and how to reduce them.

A flurry of last-minute lobbying surrounding debit-interchange regulation begins this week as lawmakers negotiating the final version of the financial-services reform bill stake out their positions on interchange.

WASHINGTON – Credit union lobbyists were undeterred last week after the congressional conference to set the final bank reform bill opened with key lawmakers pledging to retain the controversial provision that would establish federal price controls over debit card interchange.

Industry consensus is mounting to suggest that some form of the debit-interchange amendment crafted by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., will be included in the reconciled financial-reform bill. But top payments-consulting firms continue to parse the amendment’s potential effects.