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• New Health Care Reform impacts both IIAS and IIAS Exempt Merchants

  • Guides
  • Payment Industry

  June 29, 2010

  Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and/or Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) cards can only be used at drug stores or pharmacies that have implemented an IIAS system.  The IRS requires merchants selling health care eligible products to support an Inventory Information Approval System (IIAS).  

  The Special Interest Group for IIAS Standardization (SIGIS) association is composed of a broad range of participants who manages an IIAS for the IRS requirements.  MasterCard and Visa requires merchant registration upon successful IIAS implementation.

  On March 23, 2010 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (collectively "the Act") were signed into law by President Obama. The Act includes a number of … more

• Merchant Alert: Debit Interchange Regulation continues move forward

  • Credit Card News
  • Merchant Rates
  • Payment Industry

  June 22, 2010

  Update:   It's Official.  The financial regulatory overhaul bill finally became law when President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

  Interchange regulation makes the cut as the House and Senate reconciled their differences on Senator Durbin’s amendment to the proposed Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. The proposed Interchange amendment compromise must still survive a bipartisan conference committee.

  If the bill is passed, the Federal Reserve Board would gain the authority to establish rules and regulations related to the Interchange fees that issuers could earn with respect to debit card transactions. The Federal Reserve would have nine months to set Interchange fees and one would expect that they … more

• Durbin's Interchange gets more complicated

  • Credit Card News
  • Merchant Rates
  • Payment Industry

  June 17, 2010

  Senator Durbin's original Interchange amendment, inserted into the financial reform bill working its way through Congress now, would limit the amount of debit-card Interchange fees that Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. charge banks to what's considered "reasonable and proportional" to the processing costs involved. These Interchange fees are then passed on to merchants when they accept card payments. But as Durbin learns more about the payment system intricacies, his Interchange plan is developing on the fly and becoming more complicated.

  Durbin now wants to keep Interchange 'as is' for debit cards used by the government by carving out an exemption to his own amendment. As reported in Digital Transactions, Durbin said he would write language to exempt transactions on "government cards so … more

• Why Visa and MasterCard Should Voluntarily Lower Interchange

  • Credit Card News
  • Merchant Rates
  • Payment Industry

  June 16, 2010

  Lately I’ve read many articles about Contactless and Near Field Communication (NFC) payments, the prospects for merchant and consumer adoption, bridge technologies and market trials. Contactless payments, which feature speed, convenience, security and more functionality that leverages the mobile network, can outperform legacy mag-stripe payment technology. NFC promises smart phones as payment devices, which in turn promise to change consumer expectations about buying everything from mass transit, fast food and concert tickets, to the retail brands themselves.

  At the same time, U.S. cardholders increasingly find it difficult to use mag-stripe cards outside the U.S.  As we discussed here, the U.S. EMV strategy hinges on contactless / NFC adoption.  Some believe EMV 2.0 in … more

by Ty Hardison

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