Insights

New Zealand’s government decision to prohibit surcharges on most in-store card transactions should reduce consumer costs and improve price transparency, but may trigger disputes over fees between merchants, card schemes and regulators.

Regulators need to boost their oversight and auditing of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions imposed on states such as Russia.

The sweeping new regulation obligating banks and authorised payment institutions to reject transactions sent to accounts reasonably suspected of involvement in fraud will require rapid upgrades to processes and systems.

The call by three of the EU’s major financial supervisors for tighter and more harmonised oversight of crypto-asset markets, aimed at addressing flaws in the EU’s crypto regime, could create new compliance challenges for payments firms.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the US banking sector is evolving rapidly. New tools are being deployed across diverse use cases, creating both opportunities and potential compliance risks for financial institutions.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (Markets in Crypto-Assets – MiCA) was published on June 9, 2023. It provides specific rules and requirements for crypto-assets, related services and activities that were previously not covered by Union legislative acts on financial services. This Mapping EU Legislation: MiCA page lays out the key dates, transition deadlines for member states, as well as any RTS, ITS, delegated regulation, implementing regulation or guideline issued and published. It will be updated in line with any MiCA update.

A bill drafted by the Senate Banking Committee could transform the regulatory landscape for crypto-asset companies by providing the framework long sought by the industry.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has confirmed that it plans to lift its ban on “no surcharge” rules across the Visa, Mastercard and eftpos networks. If the ban is lifted, the three networks are expected to reinstate rules that prevent merchants from adding surcharges.

With non-EU providers increasingly dominating the user experience in Europe, a Bank of Lithuania official believes that modernised infrastructure, including the digital euro, is critical to payments sovereignty and growth.

On July 9, 2025, the Central Bank of Montenegro (CBCG) unveiled a significant package of payment reforms designed to remove friction in the movement of money, accelerate both domestic and cross-border transactions and further align the country’s payment landscape with the integration of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). The reforms bring three headline changes for banks: stricter caps on SEPA credit transfer fees; extended payment system operating hours (including weekend processing); and a streamlined, lower tariff structure for CBCG settlement services. Together, these measures signal a clear shift towards cost reduction, operational efficiency and increased service availability. These themes will reshape pricing strategies, settlement processes and competitive positioning in Montenegro’s payments market.