The Green Sheet Online Edition
December 22, 2025 • 25:12:02
Street Smarts
Unfinished Business: The hemp ban and card brand settlement
Payment professionals won't have to wait for the ball to drop on Times Square this year, because two big bombs have already dropped on our industry. Yesterday, I got another call from a merchant wanting to know when they'll see their savings from the Visa-Mastercard settlement and another call from a hemp-based business owner asking if they're going to get shut down.
These issues are receiving a lot of press and have not even been finalized. As we wait to see how these issues play out, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Hemp and CBD
Congress and the hemp lobby have a year to figure out new rules and regulations regarding hemp and CBD products. These products are sold everywhere, from mom-and-pop stores to national chains. You can find them online and at gas stations, convenience stores, smoke shops, grocery stores, and vitamin shops.
I hope that cooler heads will prevail and that ISOs will wait to see what happens and not overreact. It would be great if Congress could establish rules and standards for these products and greenlight software that could verify test results and compliance.
The biggest issue with the HEMP ban is not only the manufacturing side of things but the massive population of sellers spread across U.S. retail categories, as statistics is the chart accompanying this article demonstrates:
If the federal hemp ban language in Congress's 2025 budget survives into enforcement, it will impact nearly half of these retailers who may have to pull, re-label or replace product inventories by the third or fourth quarter of 2026.
Visa and Mastercard lawsuit
The approaching end of the massive Visa and Mastercard settlement should be cause for celebration. So why are so many ISOs, merchant level salespeople (MLSs), attorneys and the Merchant Coalition crying? The short answer is that after waiting for over 20 years, they're finding out that no one will receive a lump-sum payout.
Some ISOs, MLSs and attorneys spent thousands of dollars in anticipation of a settlement, advertising and inviting merchants to sign up for payouts.
None of them advised merchants that they could sign up directly on the official site without giving up a percentage of their benefits. When merchants learned third-party providers would make 20 percent on each claim, they got buyer's remorse and filed counterclaims.
How will the lawsuit impact dual pricing, which has been on trend in our community? Will dual-pricing merchants want to begin surcharging customers? Until these details get sorted, ISOs and MLSs' phones will continue to ring as merchants ask, where are my discounts?
It's debatable if the courts will ever go along with some of the proposed remedies, like having more surcharge options or not accepting rewards cards.
While the courts have not yet approved this settlement, it doesn't look like anyone will get a financial windfall. Flat-rate processors will make extra money, the same way they're profiting from the Durbin amendment.
When Visa and Mastercard lower interchange by 10 basis points, companies that have merchants on flat rate pricing, like Square, Stripe, QuickBooks and PayPal, will be cashing in on this 10-basis-point bonanza.
Will the card brands let them get away with keeping this money, the same way they did with Durbin 2010? None of the companies passed those savings on then, and they probably won't be doing it now. When will merchants wake up and smell the coffee?
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Allen Kopelman, a serial entrepreneur, is co-founder and CEO of Nationwide Payment Systems Inc. and host of B2B Vault: The Biz to Biz podcast. Email him at allen@npsbank.com and connect on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenkopelman/ and Twitter @AllenKopelman.
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