On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed the vigorously debated and much scrutinized Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 into law. For the payments industry, the law's key component is the Durbin Amendment, which, among other provisions, gives the Federal Reserve the power to cap interchange rates on debit card purchases at a level commensurate with the costs of processing those transactions. Yet a number of questions loom about how, precisely, the amendment's different provisions will be defined and what the ramifications of its enforcement will be.

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In order to win a $25,000 grant to be used for low-income, inner-city school kids, health care benefits card processor Evolution Benefits Inc. is asking for a little help from the payments industry. EB needs to crack the top 10 in the number of votes it receives for its TeacherDollars prepaid card program to win the grant awarded by the Pepsi Refresh Project, a monthly online contest that offers monetary rewards for good ideas on how to improve communities.

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Visa Inc. and the National Retail Federation launched a "best practices" information campaign to help merchants safeguard stored card data, mainly by reducing its storage. The campaign is aimed at merchants unclear about the rules governing payment data storage and the acquiring players who work with them, according to Eduardo Perez, Global Head of Data Security for Visa.

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A growing coalition of consumers and merchant services professionals is spearheading a campaign for a "National Cash Only Day," in protest of the Durbin Amendment to the financial reform bill recently approved by Congress. The amendment allows the Federal Reserve to place limits on debit card interchange fees and has prompted worries that it will open the way for the broader regulation of interchange.

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In the aftermath of the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana, many coastal merchants in the region are facing economic uncertainty as would-be tourists turn away from beaches that are typically crowded at this time of year. And this is affecting the ISOs and merchant level salespeople (MLSs) who serve them.

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The 22nd Annual Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX) honored The Green Sheet Inc. with three awards for content published in 2009. The Rohnert Park, Calif.-based media company won two Awards of Excellence: one for issue 09:04:02 of The Green Sheet, which focused on social networking websites, and one for the entire website content of its newest venture, SellingPrepaid, which reports on the prepaid card industry. The Green Sheet also received APEX's highest honor, a Grand Award for its article entitled "The Road Ahead for Mobile Payments," The Green Sheet, June 22, 2009, issue 09:06:02.

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A webinar sponsored by the Electronic Transactions Association and conducted by representatives of the IRS outlined the requirements of banks and processors when they receive notice of levies for the collection of funds the IRS believes are owed by merchants to the federal government. As part of that collection process, the IRS said, it has the authority to attach levies to processors' reserve accounts.

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There was plenty of news out of Toronto June 26 to 27, 2010, when finance leaders and central bankers from the 20 largest economies gathered to map out strategies for addressing financial crises around the world.

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The Federal Reserve Board's automated clearing house (ACH) settlement will soon have a more expedient option. As of Aug. 2, 2010, the Fed's rules for the new FedACH SameDay Service will go into effect. This represents the first material schedule change for forward ACH payments in 35 years.

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