Payment Regulation Tracker

Visa expanding USDC stablecoin settlement on Solana and Ethereum to more markets. Enables 7-day settlement and near-instant cross-border merchant payouts.

Biometric authentication for online card payments using FIDO2 passkeys. Eliminates OTP/SMS-based SCA. Rolling out with issuers globally.

Federal Reserve Regulation II debit interchange cap. Current cap: $0.21 + 0.05% per transaction + $0.01 fraud-prevention adjustment. Fed proposed reducing to $0.144 + 0.04% in October 2023, not yet finalized. Under dual appellate challenge in Sixth Circuit (Linney's Pizza) and Eighth Circuit (Corner Post). Affects banks with >$10B assets.

Federal stablecoin regulatory framework signed into law July 18, 2025. OCC, Fed, FDIC, Treasury must issue implementing regulations by July 18, 2026. Act takes effect on earlier of 18 months from enactment (Jan 18, 2027) or 120 days after final regulations issued. OCC proposed rules published Feb 25, 2026; comment period ends May 1, 2026. State issuers with >$10B outstanding must transition to federal supervision within 360 days.

Payment Services Directive 3 and Payment Services Regulation. Replaces PSD2. Expected to strengthen open banking, improve fraud liability, expand scope to crypto-assets, and mandate IBAN/name verification.

Visa accelerating Click to Pay adoption across European e-commerce. Guest checkout tokenization for card-not-present transactions.

SWIFT mandates structured postal addresses in all CBPR+ ISO 20022 messages. Unstructured address fields will no longer be accepted for cross-border payments. Financial institutions must ensure all counterparty address data is structured. Industry reports suggest ~44% of banks are behind schedule for Nov 2026 deadlines.

SWIFT mandates adoption of the Status Reporting Process (SRP) for case management in CBPR+ ISO 20022 messages. All participants must support standardized exception and investigation handling via camt messages. Also in Nov 2026: MT101 discontinuation. Full end of MT/MX coexistence targeted for Nov 2028.

Extends data sharing beyond payments to insurance, pensions, investments, and lending. Part of the EU’s broader open finance strategy.

ECB preparation phase for digital euro with concrete pilot timeline disclosed March 2026. Regulation proposed June 2023, awaiting European Parliament and Council adoption. Pilot launch planned H2 2027 on TIPS infrastructure, with potential first issuance by 2029. Pontes DLT wholesale settlement launching Q3 2026.

EPI’s Wero launches in-store contactless NFC payments, directly competing with Visa/Mastercard at point of sale. Built on SCT Inst.

Revised $38 billion settlement (Nov 2025) in US merchant class action against Visa and Mastercard, after 2024 $30 billion version was rejected. New terms: 10bp reduction in average effective credit interchange rate for 5 years, cap on standard consumer credit card rates at 1.25% for 8 years, new merchant rights to decline high-cost cards and add surcharges by card category including ability to refuse most expensive rewards cards. Covers approximately 12 million merchants. NRA, NACS, Walmart among objectors. Judge Cogan granted preliminary approval June 9, 2026. Final approval expected late 2026 or early 2027.

Transition from OBIE to permanent regulatory body. Variable recurring payments mandate. Smart Data legislation expected to expand beyond banking.

UK PSR reviewing Visa/Mastercard cross-border interchange increases post-Brexit. UK→EEA debit rose to 1.15%, credit to 1.50% after Brexit.

Fedwire expanding to 22 hours/day, 6 days/week, 365 days/year. Significant change for correspondent banking and cross-border payment windows.

Mastercard’s target for 100% tokenized e-commerce transactions in Europe. All card-not-present transactions to use network tokens instead of PANs.