Regulators Sharpening Their Ordinance Knives For New Payments

Although regulators have never been mainstays of payment facilitators' holiday card lists, as payments grow increasingly complex, those regulators will become even more ever-present and, candidly, resented. As state regulators—along with their federal counterparts from the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, plus some global regulators—zero in on newer payment methods, their chief focuses will be organizational structure.

Specifically, initial questions will focus on "whether compliance functions are adequately staffed, whether we have enough risk managers looking at all of the pieces of the puzzle and whether the board is involved. We're starting to see these regulators ask these questions," said Ellen Berge, law partner at Venable LLP as well as panel leader for the compliance panel at the Merchant Acquirers Committee (MAC). Berge discussed these issues during this issue's edition of the PaymentFacilitator.com's weekly payments podcast.