Cards

The digital bank for small businesses is partnering with the financial software company Ramp to help its customers apply for corporate cards and access expense management and bill pay software.

Canadian merchants are now allowed to add a fee for Mastercard and Visa credit card transactions. But early indications suggest few will do so, fearing consumer backlash.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and his New York counterpart, Letitia James, urged the CEOs of Visa, Mastercard and American Express to create a merchant category code for guns and ammunition stores. They argued that "all options must be on the table to remedy" the "scourge of gun violence" in the United States.

Customers can use the company's application programming interfaces to set up automatic bill payments and donations, block transactions that would break their budget, and more.

The retail industry, which wants the Federal Reserve to lower a decade-old price cap, has been complaining that higher prices for consumers mean heftier interchange fees. But banks are pointing out that the $10 billion-asset threshold below which financial institutions are exempt from the cap hasn’t been adjusted for inflation.

The U.K.’s Payment Systems Regulator will focus a pair of market reviews on the rising card fees charged by Visa and Mastercard. 

Brian Brooks, an acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency during the Trump administration, says the CEO of one of the largest U.S. banks considered barring customers from using its cards to buy firearms.

Last year, the Cleveland bank stopped providing cards to government benefit recipients in the Prairie State. During the first quarter, it reported a 23.8% decline in noninterest income from cards and payment services.

Bank of America expects 3% GDP growth this year and a 2% improvement next year, even in the face of rising rates. Consumers’ continued willingness to spend and borrow, which was evident in the bank’s first-quarter results, is a key reason for that outlook.

Bank-issued prepaid benefits cards were supposed to help state governments deliver these funds more efficiently. But the pandemic scrambled the economics of these programs.