Payment fees

While a merchant may choose to run a program incorrectly, it is our responsibility as professionals to fully understand what the rules are and communicate the impact if they are not followed, says Clearent's Phil Ricci.

Long after the pandemic is finally behind us, the many security and financial benefits owners, management companies and fans alike receive from having the technology in place will remain too invaluable to ignore, says Corsight's Rob Watts.

The unfortunate reality for merchants and their customers is that swipe fees have continued to increase because the payment card market is broken, says payments consultant Mark Horwedel.

Paytm’s decision to open its own app store after Google forced developers to use its billing system was a predictable move, as is the potential for fintechs to steal payment volume from the technology giants.

As the pandemic has stretched on further into 2020, with more lockdowns and economic disruption predicted heading into the fall and winter, continuing to offer fee waivers has not always proved financially viable.

Epic, the maker of Fortnite, is suing Apple and Google for forcing app makers to hand over a 30% cut of their revenue to the tech giants. The grievance against Apple is pretty clear-cut; the attack on Google is more nuanced, and could have major consequences for the payments industry.

Oklahoma lawmakers' decision last month to drop the state's surcharging ban was yet another signal that U.S. merchants have the final say in whether to apply extra charges to credit card transactions to offset interchange fees.

The agency announced changes meant to reduce compliance costs and allow some institutions to provide estimates rather than disclose exact prices for international money transfers.

The rise of challenger banks has meant that this revenue stream is becoming increasingly squeezed.

The grocery giant reportedly has reversed its decision to bar Visa credit cards in its stores, demonstrating the limited effect of merchant bans in battling the payment networks.