Payments & Prepaid Instruments
The law firm’s Payments & Prepaid Instruments group has extensive experience addressing regulatory compliance of payment instruments and prepaid cards. The team’s focus touches all aspects of the implementation and management of payment and prepaid card programs, including standing up the architecture of programs through design and corporate hygiene, managing contractual work between the network of companies involved in a program, providing guidance on federal and state regulatory compliance at implementation and through the pendency of a program, developing compliant terms and conditions across programs, defending challenges to programs in regulatory and judicial forums, and engaging in federal and state legislative efforts to assist individual clients and contribute to responsible legislation and rulemaking governing the payments industry more broadly. The group represents most segments of the industry, including state and federal banks and financial institutions; national, regional, and local retail chains; online retailers; and industry organizations, as well as several of the major trade organizations in the loyalty and gift card space. The attorneys assist clients in navigating an increasingly complex array of state and federal regulations by incorporating compliance management techniques into payment instrument and prepaid card programs.
The advice of our Payments & Prepaid Instruments group touches over a trillion dollars of card loads on billions of cards in hundreds of card programs in more than forty countries.
Practice Group Attorneys
Areas of Experience
- Consumer protection laws, including fraud protections
- Escheat and unclaimed property laws
- Anti-money laundering regulations
- Licensing
- Money transmission
- Privacy regulations
- Electronic funds
- Virtual payment and prepaid cards
- Management of breakage and slippage
- Legal-related accounting matters, including federal, state and local income tax, GAAP and IFRS standards
- Vendor contracts
- Bank sponsor agreements
- Third-party distributor contracts
- Americans with Disabilities Act Title III public accommodations industry compliance
- Program Regulatory Management: Designed, advised on and/or managed regulatory compliance systems for hundreds of programs both in the United States and internationally in over 40 countries
- Industry Innovation: Served as attorneys for industry innovators
- Legislative Projects: Routinely retained to present information or comment upon numerous proposed statutes and regulations, such as the Credit CARD Act of 2009, the Durbin Amendment, FinCEN regulations, and numerous state and provincial regulations
- Industry Standards: Worked on several standards used in the payment and prepaid card industries, such as the standards for derecognizing prepaid card and payment liabilities set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board
- M&A Related Projects: Routinely guide clients on the impact of M&A transactions on stored value portfolios
- Litigation Support: Served as direct and special counsel with respect to litigation matters in the payments and prepaid card industry