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NewsBriefs

This article contains excerpts from news stories recently posted under Lawmakers target Visa, Mastercard
Breaking Industry News on our homepage. For links to these and other routing rules, again
full news stories, please visit www.greensheet.com/breakingnews.
php. Momentum is building in Washington for legislation that
would dismantle what some call the Mastercard-Visa "du-
opoly" on credit card processing. The Credit Card Compe-
tition Act of 2023 is a rehash of legislation introduced in
the last Congress by Senator Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who
authored the Durbin Amendment, which paved the way
for debit interchange caps.

This time around, Sen. Durbin has support from both
ATM giant Diebold seeks bankruptcy protection sides of the political aisle. First-term Senator J.D. Vance,
R-Ohio; Senator Roger Marshall, M.D., R-Kan.; and Sena-
ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf filed for Chapter 11 tor Peter Welsch, D-Vt., all signed on as co-sponsors of the
bankruptcy protection after reaching an agreement with legislation. And identical legislation was introduced in the
key financial stakeholders on a comprehensive debt re- House by Representative Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Lance
structuring plan, the company stated. Gooden, R-Texas. In a summary of the bill, lawmakers
argued that "Visa and Mastercard have structured their
The Ohio firm filed the necessary paperwork with a bank- networks to avoid competitive market pressures on their
ruptcy court in Texas on June 2, 2023, and said a similar fees…It's a take-it-or-leave-it system, and it is difficult for
restructuring scheme would be filed by its Dutch subsid- any merchant to stay in business without accepting cards
iary, Diebold Nixdorf Holdings B.V. in accordance with from the Visa-Mastercard duopoly."
Dutch law. While the arrangement is expected to have
no impact on the day-to-day operations of the hardware Lawmakers hone focus on
manufacturer, or its vendors, common stockholders will nonbank payments companies
take a big hit.
Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is troubled by reports of
The company's outstanding common shares are to be can- widespread fraud and scams on Venmo and Cash App.
celed under the restructuring plan. And he's not alone. The Senate Banking Committee chair-
man, along with committee members Senators Jack Reed,
Under terms of the plan, agreed to by nearly 80 percent D-R.I., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Elizabeth Warren, D-
of creditors, most of the company's $2.7 billion debt load Mass., wants the companies behind the two person-to-
will be discharged in lieu of a $1.25 billion debtor-in-pos- person payment apps to do more to protect users from
session facility that will be used to support restructuring scams and other types of fraud.
costs, pay vendors and support ongoing company opera-
tions. "Americans deserve a payments system that provides them
with speed and convenience, but above all, that keeps
Discover study charts fintech growth their money safe," the senators wrote in June 15 letters to
The fintech sector is well-positioned for continued growth, Dan Shulman, president and CEO of PayPal, which owns
according to The Fintech State of the Union, published June Venmo, and Brian Grassadonia, the CEO at Cash App.
6, 2023.
The letters came a day after Rohit Chopra, director of the
The survey of 5,004 consumers, 852 fintech vendors and 83 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, appeared before
venture capitalists was commissioned by Discover Global the committee to update members on the bureau's ac-
Network and conducted in the first two quarters of 2023 tivities. "We are focusing more heavily on supervision of
by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. nonbank financial firms, which have not always been sub-
Respondents were based in Brazil, Canada, China/Hong jected to similar oversight as chartered banks and credit
Kong, Germany, India, Mexico, Singapore, the UK and unions," Chopra said in prepared remarks.
United States, stated Matt Sloan, Discover's head of busi-
ness development.
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