You Can Get an Instant $200 Amazon Gift Card Ahead of Prime Day
If you’re shopping Amazon Prime Day this month, you can earn a $200 Amazon gift card to put toward your purchases with Amazon’s flagship credit card. Prime Day officially kicks off on July 16 and ends on July 17, but early Prime Day deals are already live. The two-day event features big discounts on Amazon’s wide-reaching inventory, making it the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Prime Visa’s attractive welcome bonus. Amazon’s Prime Visa card offers one of the best welcome bonuses on the market: a $200 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval. That could cover an item or two during your Prime Day shopping spree. [CNet]
A Key Part of America’s Economy Has Shifted Into Reverse
A vast swath of the US economy is showing signs of weakness as unemployment rises to its highest point in more than two years. Consumer demand seems to have tapered off so far this summer. That weakness is also evident in the latest spending figures, a far cry from last year’s lucrative summertime spending spree when Americans shelled out for films and high-profile concerts. The Institute for Supply Management’s latest monthly survey that gauges economic activity in the services sector showed that so-called new orders and overall economic activity unexpectedly slipped into contraction territory last month. [CNN]
California Now Forces Credit Cards to Assign Special Code to Gun Stores as 16 States Ban It
California this month became the first state to require credit card companies to create a unique four-digit code for stores selling firearms. And on the same day the law took effect in California, July 1, laws banning that code also went into effect in Tennessee, Georgia, Iowa and Wyoming. The code, known as the merchant category code (MCC), tracks the type of business where a transaction was made to determine things like tax reporting or transaction fees. It can also be used to track purchasing behavior, but MCCs do not note the specific items purchased. Colorado passed a law similar to California’s this year, a move cheered by gun safety advocates. But meanwhile, a slew of bills banning MCCs have popped up in more than 15 red states, and many have been signed into law already. [USA Today]
Visa, Mastercard to Extend Non-EU Card Fee Caps to 2029
Visa and Mastercard will extend caps on tourist card fees agreed five years ago with EU antitrust regulators by another five years to 2029, the European Commission said on Friday. Visa, the world’s largest payments network operator, and its closest rival Mastercard, in 2019 agreed to a 0.2% fee cap on non-EU debit card payments carried out in shops and a 0.3% fee limit on credit card payments to settle an EU antitrust investigation and avoid hefty fines. The fee caps are due to end in November this year. [Reuters]
Could Capital One Become the Next Visa or Mastercard?
Capital One’s credit card business is a highly profitable one. Thanks to the average credit card APR of about 25% in the current environment and relatively low deposit costs, Capital One has a net interest margin (NIM) of about 6.7% throughout its business. Other big banks would typically be happy with a NIM in the 2%-3% range. However, the business is about to get a whole lot bigger. Capital One announced in February that it had agreed to acquire Discover in an all-stock transaction that values the business at about $35 billion. While this clearly is a big move for Discover, I think it can be an even bigger deal than many investors believe. Here’s why I think the Discover merger could eventually put Capital One in the same realm as Visa and Mastercard. [The Motley Fool]
New York City Doubles Debit Card Payments For Migrants
New York City is expanding its program to provide prepaid debit cards to migrant families staying in hotels to allow them to buy food and essentials. It is expected that 7,300 prepaid debit cards will be distributed over the next six months, with a total value of over $2.6 million, according to city officials. The city currently hosts more than 60,000 migrants under its care, and the program will expand from three hotels to 17, which could assist 1,230 migrants every month. The program has received fierce opposition from Republicans over fears the cards will be misused and that migrants are receiving preferential treatment over New York residents. [Newsweek]
Supreme Court Lets Complaint on Debit Fees Proceed
The Supreme Court ruled that a lawsuit by a North Dakota merchants group challenging a debit card interchange rate set by the Federal Reserve can proceed. The case, filed in 2021, had been blocked previously because a lower court ruled, and an appellate court agreed, that the complaint was barred by a six-year statute of limitations. But the Supreme Court disagreed in a 28-page opinion, saying that the statute of limitations didn’t apply “until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action,” and therefore the lawsuit isn’t extinguished in this instance. [Payments Dive]
Swipe Fee Settlement Judge Says $30 Billion Agreement Is ‘Paltry’
Last last month, a federal judge rejected Visa and Mastercard’s $30 billion settlement with merchants. Now, new court filings provide more detail about U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie’s rejection of the deal in the decades-old litigation between the two payments giants and retailers over credit card “swipe fees.” Court documents show that Brodie says that the two companies seem to be able to pay for a “substantially” bigger settlement. She also argued that the proposed deal would have “disproportionately and inequitably” benefited small, local merchants over larger retailers like Walmart and Target. [PYMNTS]
Mobile Payments Will Account for More than $1 Trillion in U.S. Point-of-Sale Transactions in 2027
Proximity mobile payment transaction value will increase by 21.4% this year and by double digits through the end of our forecast in 2028. Nearly 4 in 10 people in the US (39.3%) will use proximity mobile payments this year, according to our March 2024 forecast. Apple Pay is the No. 1 proximity mobile payment platform by users in the US. No. 2 is the Starbucks mobile app, followed by Google Pay. Creating seamless ways for consumers to buy in-store enhances the retail experience. [eMarketer]
Savvy Americans Have Found a Cunning Way to Build Points with a Rewards Credit Card
Savvy Americans have figured out a cunning way to build their reward points by signing up for the first ever credit card centered entirely around paying your rent. Wells Fargo and startup Bilt launched the Bilt Mastercard in 2022, a rewards credit card that attracted over one million new accounts in its first 18 months. With the Bilt card, users can pay their rent without their landlord passing the two to three percent transaction fee onto them. Their rent payment is also eligible for points – one per dollar spent – that can later be redeemed to book flights, hotels or rental cars. Or they can be transferred to travel partners including American Airlines, Air France and Marriott Bonvoy. [Daily Mail]
