Payment Systems – Page 5 – FinTech and Blockchain Law Watch

What the CFPB Leadership Dispute Means for the Prepaid Account Rule

Dec 20 2017

By Eric A. Love and Dan S. Cohen

With Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney in place as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and a legal challenge to his appointment to that position brought by CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English continuing to proceed through the courts, prepaid industry participants are rightly asking what this ongoing leadership dispute means for the CFPB’s sweeping Final Rule amending Regulation E and Regulation Z as applied to prepaid accounts.

Newly Released Virtual-Currency Businesses Act Augurs Increased State Regulation of Bitcoin, Ether, and other Digital and Crypto Currencies

Nov 09 2017

By Jeremy M. McLaughlin

On October 9, 2017, the Uniform Law Commission released the final version of its Uniform Regulation of Virtual-Currency Businesses Act (“VCBA”). The Act repeatedly references both state money transmission laws and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network money services business regulations, noting that the VCBA is intended to provide protections and obligations that are generally similar to those legal regimes.

Federal Reserve Board outlines next steps for faster payments

Oct 11 2017

By Eric A. Love

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has released a paper entitled “Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System: Next Steps in the Payments Improvement Journey” (the Strategies Paper). The Strategies Paper builds upon the FRB’s “first steps” for enhancing the U.S. payment system (which were described in a 2015 FRB paper) and details the next phase of this work. It includes an assessment of ambitious proposals made by the Faster Payments Task Force and the Secure Payments Task Force.

What you need to know about capital raising with ICOs (Business Bytes video)

Sep 28 2017

There is a lot of noise surrounding capital raising with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and there are updates almost daily from regulators around the globe. For instance, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) released their views on ICOs today (see ‘ASIC releases its guidance on ICOs‘), while China has recently banned this new form of capital raising.

Tax-free cryptocurrency transactions could come with reporting obligations

Sep 19 2017

By Elizabeth C. Crouse, Mary Burke Baker, Robert M. Crea, Claire S. White and Rachel D. Trickett

As cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum become more prevalent in investment circles and acceptable for commercial transactions, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has said little other than to label “virtual currencies” as property and state that transactions involving virtual currencies may be subject to taxation under generally applicable law. However, on September 7, the Congressional Blockchain Caucus introduced the Cryptocurrency Tax Fairness Act which would exempt certain cryptocurrency transactions and create a cryptocurrency-specific information reporting requirement.

To read more about this update, click here.

Faster Payments Task Force issues Part Two of Final Faster Payments Report

Aug 29 2017

By Eric A. Love and Judith Rinearson

The Faster Payments Task Force (the Task Force) has issued part two of its Final Report that sets forth a blueprint for achieving faster and more secure payments in the U.S. by 2020.

Convened by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and comprised of a broad cross-section of over 300 industry, government and consumer group stakeholders, the Task Force released part one of its Final Report in January 2017 which outlined the Task Force’s goals and the many advantages of faster payments. Instead of championing a single method to achieving “ubiquitous faster payments,” the Task Force states in part two that it favors competition among a wide array of potential ways to achieve this goal and supports collaboration with industry stakeholders to ensure “broad adoption; safety, integrity and trust; and interoperability.”

Better late than never to the FinTech party

Aug 17 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Olivia Coburn

Oracle has finally realised that it wants to hang out with the cool FinTech kids on the block, having recently announced the release of its Oracle Banking Payments application programming interface (API) service.

Oracle’s move recognises the value of offering better ways for its banking clients to collaborate with FinTechs and other third parties.

PSD2 major incident reporting guidelines

Aug 09 2017

By Judith Rinearson and Rizwan Qayyum

On July 27 2017, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published the Final Guidelines (the Guidelines) on major incident reporting under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The Guidelines were developed in conjunction with the European Central Bank (ECB), and are addressed to all payment services providers and competent authorities within the 28 European Union Member States. With the expected implementation of PSD2 in January 2018, the Guidelines further contribute to the objective of the PSD2 aiming to minimize disruption to its users, payment service providers and the systems.

Hot Topic Briefing: Passport To The Regulators

Aug 06 2017

By Jonathan Lawrence

On 3 October, our London office will host an all-day event Hot Topic Briefing: Passport To The Regulators. The event has been put together by The Emerging Payments Association (EPA), a commercial membership association of payments industry players. It will consist of keynote presentations from and Q&As with the following six European Union regulators:

Cyprus
Denmark
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Spain

This event is a follow up to the EPA’s Passport To The Future report (launched in January 2017) that examined similar issues. It will give a platform to host regulators of potential home states for regulated entities, should full passporting from the UK no longer be possible. The regulators will present the process, options, costs and timelines for obtaining licences within their jurisdiction. The day is designed for the UK FinTech community and is an opportunity to hear from these regulators directly.

FCA payment services rule making powers extended

Jul 26 2017

By Jonathan Lawrence

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a statement expressing concern that payment institutions and e-money institutions may have used currency converter tools in relation to their currency transfer services in a misleading way. Tools which convert currency at the interbank rate may be used in such a way as to give consumers the misleading impression that the interbank rates shown are available to them, rather than the materially inferior rate that customers are likely to achieve. Consumers may not become fully aware of the inferior rate they are likely to achieve until an advanced stage in the customer journey, commonly after a customer registration process has been undertaken. At that stage, consumers may be unlikely to shop around.

Category:Payment Systems