Network rules

Pan-European payments and transaction services provider equensWorldline has launched its domestic interoperable P2P mobile payment scheme across the continent.

It may take several more months of testing before it is deployed in a payments application, but a new money transfer specification the NFC Forum has developed carries the organization's promise of becoming an alternative to QR-code technology.

P2P transfer apps aren't just for splitting the rent — they can also be portals to a wider array of financial services, as Canada’s national Interac debit network plans to prove.

In a move to strengthen the open banking hub it created last summer in the wake of Europe's PSD2 legislation, Mastercard will work with platform provider Token.io Ltd to serve European customers.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication reports that its Global Payments Innovation system, which it launched two years ago, now handles more than a million payments a day.

The European Commission has fined Mastercard 570 million Euros, or about $648 million, over card network rules that prevented merchants from shopping for better terms at other banks in the EU.

Even though American Express received pre-approval to provide transaction settlement services in China more than a year ago, it is playing the waiting game to get those wheels in motion amid a fiery political climate.

Mastercard is cracking down on merchants who bill consumers for unwanted subscriptions when a free trial offer ends — but by limiting the rule to physical goods, it's leaving a lot of potential consumer goodwill on the table.

To stay ahead of the rapid development of payment applications, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is making new software security standards and a validation program for vendors available later this year.

The number of states not allowing surcharging on credit card purchases continues to dwindle, as New York now gives merchants the option to charge fees as long as they make the costs clear to consumers.

Hungary’s commercial banks have started the initial testing phase of an instant payments scheme, with plans to go live on July 1 for domestic broadscale use.

LifeLock co-founder Robert Maynard is behind a startup called SurchX, which hopes to capitalize on the confusion around swipe fees with technology that generates a surcharge amount customized for each transaction.

The financial services and payments industries are aggressively trying to replace older systems with sleeker technology, but Swift has a separate goal in mind with the Global Payments Innovation system, or GPI.

The ubiquity of plastic payment cards makes it hard to imagine a future without them, but Japan’s JCB card network already envisions it.

The Global Payments Innovation service now moves 55 percent of Swift's cross-border transactions as it nears its second anniversary.

It might be too early to determine the full impact of the new Visa Claims Resolution process designed to streamline and limit chargebacks, but 52 percent of respondents surveyed claimed no decrease in chargebacks since VCR, and most of the 33 percent reporting a decline cited a decrease of less than 5 percent.

Fifteen major banks will test Swift's pre-validation service for Global Payments Innovation transactions, focusing on quickly identifying and eliminating errors or omissions in payment messages.

Visa Inc., American Express Co. and Mastercard Inc. are among firms being investigated by Brazilian regulators over some rules governing use of payment networks.

Now that states such as Michigan, Utah and Missouri voted in favor of legalization in this year's midterms, legal marijuana is poised to become a growth industry.

Gas Pos, which markets a solution for petroleum operators to convert to EMV payment technology at the pump, has raised $1 million in funding from a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.