Posts Tagged ‘REGULATION’

September 19, 2013 – The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this week awarded grants totaling more than $7 million to five organizations to develop pilot identify protection systems. The awards are the second round of grants for a project launched in 2011 — the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, or NSTIC. The program serves as a wonderful example of collaboration between the private sector, advocacy groups and public sector agencies to develop online options for consumers that are convenient, secure and private.

September 13 – The antitrust complaint against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. will continue, prolonging the eight-year battle, after both proponents and defendants were heard during the fairness hearing Sept. 12. U.S. District Judge John Gleeson of Brooklyn reserved final judgment at the conclusion of a roughly 5 1/2-hour hearing, saying he had been presented with “very important and difficult issues.” His decision could take several months to deliver.

September 9, 2013 – ETA announced the next step in its continued expansion of government relations activities with the hiring of seasoned Hill veteran Jaime Graham as the association’s new Senior Government Affairs Manager.

September 6, 2013 – The IRS recently announced that it has ruled in ETA’s favor on proposed changes to IRS 6050W, merchant transaction reporting. ETA advocated for a one-year delay of the implementation of backup withholding (or B notice process) for merchants who have missing or incorrect TINs.

August 29, 2013 – As the global trade association of the payments industry, ETA constantly innovates to provide new opportunities for our 525 member companies to grow their businesses globally.

August 26, 2013 – Recently, ETA has been ramping up our advocacy initiatives on behalf of our member companies. ETA is the leading organization in Washington advocating for the payments industry and a key source of information for legislators and regulators. In order to better serve our members, ETA’s Director of Government Relations, Mary Bennett, has registered as a lobbyist. ETA is also launching a PAC at our upcoming Strategic Leadership Forum in October.

July 9, 2013 – Payments companies have been solidly outperforming the S&P 500, according to the most recent TSG Payments Index (TSGPX), released by The Strawhecker Group. TSGPX is made up of 29 publicly traded US payments business and has compared the performance of a $100 investment in this index to that of the S&P 500.