GLG News by Credit Card Experts

A recent decision by Canada's Competition Bureau strengthens the defense of the bankcard industry in the interchange lawsuit in New York.  In reversing a long standing rule that prevented banks in Canada from issuing Visa and MasterCards. the decision concluded that the restructuring...

Retailers are pursuing multiple avenues to try to pressure the card associations into reducing interchange.  Interchange remains the paradigm of revenue for card issuers, the basis for card associations to assess fees, and the funding driver for new payment products and rewards programs. ...

President-elect owes Big Labor a bone for its enormous support in getting him elected and Labor wants enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act more than any other political favor.  The odds would seem to favor Labor, but in turn would spell disaster for the business community.  For the first...

Public anger against banks, coupled with merchant anger against bankcard issuers, will force the Obama Administration and Congress to consider legislation to resolve the merchand-card industry impasse on how, if at all, interchange fees should be calculated.  While policy makers on the one...

Visa & MasterCard's $2.75B settlement of the antitrust suit against them by Discover should have relevance to the interchange lawsuit against them by their merchants.  It suggests either great vulnerability to the merchants or a strategic act by the networks to remove Discover as a distraction. ...

The article underlines the extent to which governments will go to retrun banks to profitability.  Accordingly, EU policy makers will not enforce  state aid laws that would otherwise prohibit capital infusions into local banks by state regulators and will favorably consider less aggressive...

$700 Billion spent buying worthless derivative securities is far more costly and less sure of success than simply fixing the mass of defaulted mortgages. The Elected representatives of The People of the US should manage the economy to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. So far the proposals...

It should be no surprise that the subprime/ARS collapse has generated waves of class action lawsuits by shareholders.  And that they appear to have merit.  But that doesn't mean courts will give the plaintiffs the WMD of a class action status.  Ten years ago that would have been...

The DoJ amicus brief to the Supreme Court in a telecommunications case hints at a more relaxed view about the applicability of antitrust law to pricing decisions by regulated companies.  A key accusation in the bankcard interchange cases is that competing regulated banks on Visa...

The new DoJ antitrust guidelines significantly water down monopoly, per se liability, competition and tie-in standards that have propelled government enforcement and private lawsuits by retailers in recent years against Visa, MasterCard and their issuers.  Undoubtedly, the defendants will point...