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American Express Announces E-Commerce Bank Transfer

Starting later this year, American Express is offering online shoppers a brand-new way to pay retailers directly from their bank account, in real-time, without the need to use a debit or credit card in hand.

The new service, which will be offered to bank account holders in the U.K., even those without an American Express card, is set to roll out in the fourth quarter.

Here’s how the new Pay with Bank Transfer option will work.

What Is an American Express E-Commerce Bank Transfer?

Whereas before consumers were required to enter card details, thanks to American Express, this could all soon be a thing of the past. The service offers customers the option to instead make their payment via an American Express bank transfer with real-time payments directly from their bank account, rather than via their debit card. Customers will also be able to view their bank balances prior to confirming the transaction, and, according to American Express, will be able to benefit from “bank level data security.”

To make use of the service, all customers will have to do is click on the “Pay with Bank Transfer” button upon checkout, and select their bank from which they wish to make the purchase. They will then be redirected to their bank’s website where they will sign in and authenticate themselves, and approve the payment details before continuing to finalize the purchase.

Thanks to a wider initiative known as open banking, the data that people have stored with multiple financial institutions can be collected together and shared with trusted third parties, simplifying procedures while maintaining high levels of security.

Do I Need to Be an American Express Cardholder?

Not at all. The bank transfer service is open to anyone, whether they are an American Express customer or not. All that is required of the customer is a U.K.-based bank account.

What are the Benefits of an American Express E-Commerce Bank Transfer?

Currently, bank transactions require having a physical card or card information to complete a transaction. With the Pay with Bank Transfer option, consumers have more options for paying retailers without sacrificing security.

Transactions are also much faster. The American Express service allows for instant transfers from customers to recipients, whereas paying with a credit or debit card would usually take a few days to a week to complete.

Where Can I Use the American Express E-Commerce Bank Transfer?

There will only be a handful of retailers utilizing the system at launch, however, a major rollout throughout 2020 will see the bank transfer system adopted by a wider range of online ecommerce retailers.

Some of those initially taking part in the American Express bank transfer scheme include JustGiving, Oak Furnitureland, Thai Airways, Richer Sounds, Hays Travel, and the Royal Lancaster London Hotel.

What Are Level 2 and Level 3 Data?

Credit card brands divide their fee structure into three groups: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The higher the level, the lower the interchange fees for the merchant. While a majority of businesses may only qualify for Level 1 processing, which is the level appropriate for B2C, or business to consumer, transactions, some businesses are exclusively B2B, or business to business, merchants, which can take advantage of the Level 2 and Level 3 interchange fee discounts. In this article, you will learn the differences in the different levels of data and how to use level data to reduce your business interchange fees.

The More Data, the Higher the Level

Level 1 Data

The amount of data determines the level. The more data a merchant provides, the higher the level the transaction achieves. Level 1 is the most basic level requiring a minimal amount of data, namely the merchant name, the transaction amount, and the transaction date. As an example of Level 1 pricing, the Visa Commercial Card Present Level 1 fee is 2.50% + $0.10. If a majority of a merchant’s business is handled via consumer credit cards, that merchant only needs to provide Level 1 data.

Level 2 & Level 3 Data, B2B & B2G

Level 2 and Level 3 require significantly more data in exchange for a significant reduction in transaction fees. A merchant qualifies for Level 2 interchange fees if a majority of its business is B2B. If a merchant engages in mostly B2B or B2G, business to government, transactions, they can take advantage of the Level 3 interchange rates.

Credit card brands use these discounts to incentivize businesses to allow credit cards for use in major transactions, versus other forms of payment. Thus, the credit card brands require a minimum amount for the transaction. Or they offer a tiered discount, increasing in proportion to the size of the transaction.

Level 2 transactions require the following data in addition to all Level 1 data:

Tax ID
Merchant minority code
Merchant state code
Merchant ZIP code
Sales tax amount
Customer reference number

In exchange for this level 2 credit card processing data, credit card brands reduce the interchange rate by roughly 0.50% for the transaction.

Level 3 data includes the following in addition to both Level 1 and Level 2 data:

Invoice Number
Order Number
Ship-From Zip Code
Destination Zip Code
Freight Amount
Duty Amount
Item Extended Amount
Item Product Code
Item Commodity Code
Item Description
Item Quantity
Item Unit of Measure

In exchange for this level 3 credit card processing data, credit card brands reduce the interchange rate by up to 1.00% for the transaction.

Services that Support Merchants

Standard credit card processing terminals do not have the capacity for either inputting the data or forwarding the data to the credit card service. While Level 2 data is easy to enter, a separate credit card terminal or software can automatically populate the Level 2 data. Only certain gateways can process Level 3 data. Merchant credit card processing services can support merchants in handling Level 2 and Level 3 data through gateways and separate credit card processing terminals. Merchant support services also help businesses configure their information before sending Level 2 and Level 3 data to the payment provider.

ACLU Makes the Case Against Cashless Stores

The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, has been defending individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, as well as by the laws of the United States of America for close to 100 years. Most recently, the ACLU turned its focus to cashless stores.

Reasons ACLU Says No to Cashless

Consistent with the ACLU’s campaign to install privacy protections in the digital age, the civil liberties nonprofit addresses the anonymity of cash, but they also recognize the impact a cashless society would have on low-income, homeless, and undocumented people. In addition, the ACLU points out that a cashless trend negatively impacts small merchants who avoid credit card processing fees by doing a cash-only business or who offer cash discounts. Not to mention, the ACLU points out that cash always works while technology often lets us down, from technology failures to privacy and security breaches.

Cashless Bans Across the Country

The ACLU’s robust statement is in response to the cashless trend, most notably Amazon’s backpedaling on only offering cashless and cashier-less convenience stores. In response to criticism, both Amazon and Sweetgreen, a salad chain, reversed their decisions to implement a cashless business. Beyond public sentiment, actual legislation outlawed cashless stores starting in 1978 when Massachusetts banned the practice. Current backlash moved New Jersey, as well as San Francisco and Philadelphia to do the same.

Private Matter

Cash prevents anyone from knowing anything about your purchases. With the convenience of credit cards comes the potential of the credit card company not only obtaining but leveraging data about you and your purchase. Cash does have its limits, specifically the limit of $10,000, which is the starting amount one must report to the government as a cash transaction.

Fully Banked

Both low-income populations and large percentages of people of color are not “fully banked,” meaning they do not have a checking or savings account, barring them from the cashless society. Specifically, the ACLU points out, 6.5% of U.S. households have no checking or savings account while only 52% of Black people and 63% of Latino people have bank accounts. Plus, more than 18% of U.S. households have a bank account but still need to check cashing and payday loans.

Cash Discount Merchant Services

Businesses can avoid backlash while simultaneously embracing cash-paying customers by adopting cash discount merchant services. With this model, merchants can offset service fees while avoiding an increase in prices by enrolling in a cash discount program. Unlike surcharging, which charges customers an extra fee for paying with a credit card, businesses can instead add a service fee to all customers while applying a discount equivalent to this service fee when customers pay by cash or check. This platform incentivizes the use of cash.

Businesses should carefully consider whether or not their customers would not appreciate a service fee added to their bill. Service-based industries, including auto shops, landscapers, and electricians are well-suited for the service fee. Ultimately, the business owner will know best if a cash discount will work for their business.

B2B Payment Processing Solutions and Interchange Rates

B2B, or business to business, describes a transaction in which the customer is another business rather than of an individual. Whether it’s goods, services, or both, B2B payments include transactions such as purchasing supplies to do business, buying lunch for employees, or paying for travel expenses. Though the payment methods for B2B transactions are often the same as for B2C (business to consumer), credit card and checks – there are differences that need to be taken into consideration. Often times businesses use “business credit cards” which have a high interchange fee compared to consumer credit cards. In this article, you will learn about “Level 1, 2, and 3 data” – a way to lower interchange fees substantially for B2B transactions.

Transition to B2B Credit Card Purchases

Businesses are increasingly moving away from invoices and checks to pay for business to business goods and services and moving toward using a business credit card to separate business expenses from personal expenses.

When setting up business to business credit card purchases, merchants can qualify for lower B2B interchange rates when processing business credit cards. By leveraging lower interchange rates for B2B credit card processing, businesses can save potentially hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

The Cost of Doing Business – Without Data

Without taking advantage of lower interchange rates, B2B credit card processing is expensive to process. The worst rate is 3.26% + $0.10 (the MasterCard rate with no AVS data). The lower rates require a business to jump through some hoops, also known as levels, in order to qualify for these lower rates. These hoops are data. The more data a business provides via a transaction, the smaller the interchange fee for that transaction.

Level 1, 2, and 3 Data – The Higher the Level, the Lower the Fees

Level 1 Data

The basic level, Level 1, is a transaction providing the least amount of data to the credit card brands. All transactions are required to reach Level 1 whether they are B2B or B2C. Merchants must provide the merchant name, purchase amount, date, and billing zip code. This level offers only a small reduction in interchange rates.

Level 2 Data

In order to reach Level 2 interchange rates, a business must provide Level 1 data, as well as other data including sales tax amount, tax indicator, and other details of the transaction. While Visa and Mastercard have different requirements for this level, Discover doesn’t offer lower rates for Level 2 or Level 3. And American Express supports Level 1 and Level 2 while it does not support Level 3.

Level 3 Data

Level 3 requires all of the data from Levels 1 and 2 plus other data such as item commodity code, SKU description, product code, and even more data points involving the transaction. Not only do the credit card brands vary in their interchange rates depending on the Level, but they also can change these rates. Thus, a merchant must be vigilant in checking the requirements.

Lower Interchange Fees for Businesses

Merchant credit card processing services can help businesses get the lowest rates possible by properly classifying the business’s MCC code, which can reduce interchange rates, by helping a business properly process large sales, over $6,500, which also can reduce interchange rates, and by providing a business software or terminals specifically for B2B sales equipped with the Level 2 and Level 3 information, which reduces interchange rates. While B2C transactions might focus on the markup, merchants want to look at the total cost for B2B transactions.

Companies Ask Congress For Data Protection Law

Dozens of CEOs from companies like IBM and Amazon has sent an open letter to Senate and House leaders asking for comprehensive data protection laws. The letters claim state consumer privacy laws simply aren’t enough as they vary widely, lead to confusion, and threaten the competitiveness of the United States. The companies claim a federal law would create a more stable policy environment that allows companies to create products within precise and predictable boundaries.

The letter was sent on behalf of Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of some of the largest companies in the United States. The CEOs of Walmart, State Farm, Salesforce, Qualcomm, IBM, AT&T, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, and Amazon are among those who have signed the letter.

The group blames a rising number of different state privacy regulations as a leading reason for complicated consumer privacy in the country. This patchwork of regulations has also increased complications for companies that must comply with laws across various jurisdictions and states.

E-commerce Data Protection One of the most comprehensive forms of privacy protection passed at the state level is the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), a landmark privacy law that will go into effect in 2020. Beginning in 2020, Americans will have the right to demand a company disclose what personal data they have collected about the consumer and ask the company to delete the information or not share it with third parties. Companies will also need to be more upfront in telling consumers what data they collect.

While CCPA is a state law that technically only applies in California, it also covers any out-of-state merchant who sells to California or displays a website in the state. That means that any merchant will have a strong interest in complying with CCPA rather than leaving the fifth largest economy in the world.

With a single federal law for privacy and data protection that would supersede state laws, product design, data management, and compliance would be simplified.

However, some privacy advocates argue the tech companies are more interested in protecting their own interests as combining privacy regulations under a federal umbrella would allow lobby groups to water down meaningful protections. With too much protection, companies may have trouble selling certain types of consumer data to online advertisers, a large and growing area of business.

US Congress Meeting Data Protection Act The Business Roundtable released its own consumer privacy framework it wants Congress to consider as the basis for a future privacy law. Their proposal includes many provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union in more broad terms.

In February, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), a government auditing agency, gave Congress permission for passing a national data privacy law to improve consumer protections much like the GDPR. GAO also recommended placing the FTC in charge of enforcing future privacy law in the United States.

By June, reports surfaced that lawmakers had reached a roadblock attempting to create a national privacy law. Senators could not agree on how strict rules should be or on the key items of the bill.

And one last thing to consider if you are a merchant and you are worried about data breaches affecting your bottom line: Host Merchant Services Data Breach Security Program. Click that link to download a PDF explaining the value-added service HMS provides its merchants that goes above and beyond just simple PCI Compliance and helps ensure a merchant’s peace of mind.

FAQ About Companies Ask Congress For Data Protection Law

Why are companies asking Congress for a data protection law?

Companies are requesting a data protection law from Congress to establish a unified framework for handling personal data in the United States. The absence of a comprehensive federal law has led to a patchwork of state-level regulations, creating compliance complexities for businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eCompanies recognize the need for clear guidelines and standardized practices to protect consumer data, enhance cybersecurity, and build trust with their customers. A federal data protection law would provide a consistent set of rules and requirements, ensuring companies can navigate the regulatory landscape more effectively while safeguarding individuals’ privacy rights.

What are the benefits of a federal data protection law?

A federal data protection law offers several advantages. Firstly, it provides a clear and consistent regulatory framework for businesses to follow, reducing ambiguity and compliance burdens. It establishes baseline standards for data privacy, security, and breach notification, enhancing consumer protection. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eA unified law simplifies compliance for companies operating nationally, minimizing the costs associated with meeting varying state-level requirements. It also fosters trust between businesses and consumers, as individuals can have greater confidence that their personal information is being handled responsibly. Additionally, a federal law enables improved cross-border data transfers, facilitating international business operations and promoting economic growth.

What are the challenges to passing a federal data protection law?

Several challenges hinder the passage of a federal data protection law. First and foremost is the complexity of crafting legislation that balances the interests of businesses, consumers, and government agencies. Finding consensus on issues such as defining personal data, determining appropriate consent mechanisms, and establishing penalties for non-compliance can be challenging.u003cbru003eu003cbru003ePolitical divisions and differing priorities among lawmakers also contribute to delays. Additionally, lobbying efforts from various industries may influence the content and scope of the law, potentially diluting its effectiveness. Striking a balance between protecting privacy rights and enabling innovation is a delicate task, requiring careful negotiation and compromise among stakeholders.

What the Looming SCA Deadline Means for Merchants

With the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) now live, the European Union’s Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulation is now set to go into effect this month. The regulation, which aims to improve transaction security for customers and retailers, is set to bring a lot of confusion as merchants brace for the change.

What Is SCA?

Strong Customer Authentication is part of the PSD2 regulations that require greater security for many transactions using 2 of 3 forms of customer authentication. PSD2 went live in January 2018 with implications for all European companies that deal with payments. While PSD2 includes 11 mandates, one of the biggest implications is improving the security of e-commerce payments by increasing customer authentication.

Some transactions are exempt from SCA requirements including:

Trusted beneficiaries. Consumers can choose to add businesses they trust to a list of beneficiaries held by their issuing bank.
Recurring transactions involving subscription billing as long as SCA rules are applied to the first transaction or if the payment amount changes.
Low-value transactions of less than €30.

Merchant Responsibilities Under SCA

Under the new guidelines, a merchant must provide card issuers with two authentication factors from customers for the transaction to be completed. The guidelines lay out three authentication factors:

Inherence, such as a fingerprint or other biometric
Possession, such as a credit card or device
Knowledge, such as a PIN or password

Soon, millions of consumers will need to confirm they are who they say they are during e-commerce transactions by responding to communication over a mobile device, providing personally identifiable information, or using a fingerprint or facial scan.

Are Merchants Ready for the Change?

SCA is required to be built into an online merchant’s checkout flow by September 14, 2019, although research shows most e-commerce retailers are nowhere near ready. A Mastercard survey found just 25% of online retailers were even aware of the impending SCA regulations and, of these retailers, 24% had no plans to support the new requirements by the approaching deadline.

Retailers who are not equipped for the Strong Customer Authentication requirements will soon see declines on European-based transactions if they are not exempt from the regulations or they do not have 3D-Secure authentication to securely verify card-not-present (CNP) transactions.

According to one estimate from Stripe, European businesses may lose up to $57 billion within the year of SCA requirements going into effect. The same study found just 40% of businesses that were aware of the Strong Customer Authentication guidelines were ready to meet the requirements.

Which Retailers Are Affected by SCA?

European merchants aren’t directly responsible for meeting the requirements of SCA as this falls on the issuers and acquirers within the European Economic Area (EEA). This includes the 28 members of the EU plus Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway. However, retailers who do not adhere to the guidelines will likely see an impact on authorization rates for card-not-present transactions.

SCA is only required for transactions in which the issuer and acquirer are in the EEA. Retailers who contract with an acquirer that is located in the EEA, for example, will be impacted with declines on transactions processed on cards issued in the EEA when SCA guidelines are not met.

Regulated and Unregulated Debit: What You Need to Know

Following the financial crisis of 2008 Congress won the ability to regulate swipe fees, or debit interchange fees, charged to retailers by Visa and Mastercard, as well as charged by the issuing financial institutions. This is all made possible under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, more specifically the Durbin Amendment. The Durbin Amendment places banks in two categories: an exempt bank (regulated) has assets equal to or more than $10 billion and an non-exempt bank (non-regulated) has assets less than $10 billion. This status affects the fee charged to merchants by the bank that issued the debit card.

What Is Regulated Debit?

For regulated debit, which involves the consumer’s debit or prepaid card issued by a bank with more than $10 billion in assets, transactions are capped at $.21 plus 0.05% as per the Durbin amendment for both card-present and card-not-present transactions. There is an additional $0.01 charge available for entry into the card network fraud program for qualifying banks.

Although this cap has decreased the fees that most acquiring banks make from debit cards, banks have raised their minimum fees to the maximum allowable by the Durbin Amendment, essentially eliminating the small ticket discount rate to compensate for the lost revenue, causing an increase in fees for merchants who sell less than $10 per ticket.

What Is Unregulated Debit?

Unregulated debit, which are debit cards issued by banks with less than $10 billion in assets, have variable interchange fees depending on the merchant category code, the size of the transaction, as well as other factors such as whether the card is present or not. While some debit networks cap the maximum fee paid by businesses, other networks have no cap on credit card processing. Large interest groups, trade organizations as an example, can negotiate caps with networks.

Durbin Amendment Consequences

While the Durbin Amendment cut swipe fees nearly in half for larger merchants and merchants who sell big-ticket items, the amendment increases costs for businesses that sell small-ticket items. Rather than paying smaller fees on smaller purchases and larger fees on larger purchases, as was the case before the Durbin Amendment, merchants now pay the maximum amount for smaller transactions.

How Merchant Service Providers Can Help

A merchant services provider like HMS can help your business find different avenues for saving money based on the size of the business, the types of cards the business accepts, and whether the business uses CP or CNP processing.

By comparing interchange rates, merchants will discover exempt cards have varying interchange fees. By comparing signature and PIN networks, merchants can find the lowest interchange fee. Once the merchant has established the best arrangement for their business, then they can determine whether to process large national bank cards as a signature debit transaction, or to process small local bank cards as debit with the lowest exempt rates.

Host Merchant Services can help your business understand the difference between signature debit transactions where a customer uses a debit card without entering a PIN, and PIN debit transactions where a customer uses a debit card by entering a PIN, helping you save money in processing fees.

What 5G Will Mean For Mobile Payments

The expected global rollout of 5G technology is predicted to bring many changes to today’s connected global economy. With real-time, high-speed data flow, 5G is likely to fuel even further expansion of mobile payments and change the credit card processing industry on a fundamental level. Here’s what 5G may mean for the future of mobile payment technology.

What Is 5G?

A major technology shift is occurring that will bring a big update to the wireless technology that delivers data to cell phones. 5G refers to the fifth-generation cellular network which will be a big step ahead of today’s wireless technology, 4G, by offering incredibly fast mobile internet speeds that will allow users to download movies within seconds. That’s about 20 times faster than the 4G experience. 5G technology won’t just bring faster speeds; it will also reduce latency or lag which happens when signals pass between different carrier switching centers.

In addition to cell phones, the technology will also impact security systems, drones, and even vehicles. To get the full benefits of 5G, once the rollout is complete, users will need a compatible new phone and cell phone carriers will need to upgrade to new transmission equipment.

How Will 5G Technology Change Credit Card Processing?

The payment processing industry is expecting a big shakeup when 5G technology is finally rolled out. With dramatically faster speeds and reduced latency, 5G can:

Streamline transaction processes
Increase transaction speeds
Improve the accuracy of fraud prevention
Support a more user-friendly experience

5G technology can revolutionize the mobile shopping experience. For example, it makes it easier to support virtual reality shopping to allow consumers to see what an item will look like in their home before buying or go through every step of buying a car — including the credit check, receiving personalized financing options, and funds availability — with mobile technology.

Increased speeds won’t just improve customer experience; speed also supports better fraud prevention. Fast data transmission allows banks to quickly verify data like geolocation and merchant ID to avoid errors. These factors can increase consumer confidence in digital payment technology to potentially sway more people to change how they pay.

All of these benefits may support increased adoption of mobile payments, especially in the United States which is far behind China and other areas of the world in terms of adopting mobile payment technology.

While China boasts a mobile payment usage rate of more than 80%, the adoption rate in the U.S. is less than 10%. In the United States, debit and credit cards are much more widely accepted than in other regions of the world, offering an alternative to paying without cash.

To accept a mobile payment, merchants need the right hardware which are tailor-made for mobile businesses. By improving security and transaction speeds while opening the door to more advanced mobile payment options, 5G may just help increase the adoption rate of mobile payment technology in the U.S.

Hy-Vee Data Breach

In the middle of August 2019, convenience store and supermarket giant Hy-Vee reported a data breach incident involving its point of sale systems. Few details about the breach were initially given; however, it took about a week for cyber security researchers to take a closer look at the situation and provide more information on the matter. Before discussing some of the known details about the breach, it should be noted that it does not directly involve credit card processing insofar as clearing payments; it is isolated to point of sale equipment and its supporting data network.

Hy-Vee is a major brand in the American Midwest; the company operates convenience stores, supermarkets, snack bars, and gas stations from South Dakota to Missouri plus six other states. As can be expected from a merchant of this magnitude, many locations handle payments through a shared point of sale (POS) network. What is known thus far about the incident is that hackers targeted the POS and credit card reader terminals at the company’s gas stations, cafes, Market Grille restaurants and Wahlburger fast-food eateries. The POS and credit card processing systems at Hy-Vee supermarkets and convenience stores were not affected because they operate on a separate network.

According to an investigation by Brian Krebs, a respected information security researcher, the Hy-Vee breach resulted in the theft of about five million credit and debit card numbers from customers in 35 states as well as from a few countries in Europe and the Middle East. Unfortunately, these records found their way to underground cybercrime markets where they are being sold for malicious purposes. The specific market mentioned by Krebs is known as Joker’s Stash, and the name of the data dump is “Solar Energy;” the sellers are asking between $17 and $35 per record.

Since Hy-Vee is still investigating the breach, individual cardholders who may have been affected have not been notified; moreover, the locations and the specific times when the transactions were compromised have not been revealed. Another aspect of the investigation that has not been mentioned is related to the breach mechanism, but the Krebs report hinted that the POS network may have been infected with malware that intercepted data stored in the magnetic stripe of the cards. POS equipment at Hy-Vee supermarkets, convenience shops, and drugstores feature point-to-point encryption, but this does not seem to be the case in the POS equipment installed at the affected Hy-Vee gas stations, cafes and restaurants.

While the Hy-Vee data breach can result in credit and debit card cloning, the company does not think that identity theft is something that shoppers should worry about because of the type of information stolen. Nonetheless, two lessons that merchants can learn from this case include: point-to-point encryption is always preferred for POS equipment, and cybercrime insurance policies are more important than ever. It is too early to tell if the burden of liability should fall on Hy-Vee or on the vendor managing the POS network, but this is something that merchants should think about. When credit and debit card transactions are encrypted from the reader to the terminal, data breaches are significantly mitigated. Should a POS or payments processor fail to protect transactions accordingly, a good insurance policy can shield merchants from legal complaints that may arise from a data breach.

Visa Continues To Support Mobile Gun Purchases

As the debate in the United States rages on over gun laws, some companies have been taking sides by choosing to take action. Visa, however, is one company that has refused to wade into the political fray. Instead, it has opted to continue along doing business as it has been in regards to mobile payments.

An announcement from the company came in early August that it would not block mobile payments for gun purchases. Visa Chairman and CEO Alfred Kelly made the announcement after back-to-back mass shootings in Texas and Ohio thrust issues surrounding guns back into the news. It is not a change of course for the company; instead, it was merely a confirmation that things will not be changing in regards to gun purchases.

The company’s stance regarding mobile payments for gun purchases is a different one than some of its competition has taken. PayPal and Square have opted to not allow their services to be used for such purchases.

The rationale expressed by Visa CEO Alfred Kelly as to why the company will continue to support mobile gun purchases essentially comes down to it being simply a matter of not dictating morality to the company’s customers. It is legal for people to buy guns in the United States; therefore, the company will continue to process those purchases- just as it does other things that are legal but may be considered controversial by some.

That is not to say, however, that Alfred Kelly does not hold views regarding gun legislation in the United States. In an interview with CNBC, he expressed an interest in seeing lawmakers do more in regards to gun laws. However, no matter his personal views, he is not currently interested in applying them to the company that he heads up.

The company is not alone in this view, either, in regards to not dictating morality to its customers. Mastercard has also taken a similar stance. Its CEO Ajay Banga expressed similar sentiments as those of Alfred Kelly- refusing to determine what is right or wrong. As far as he is concerned, if it is legal to own an item his company will help customers purchase it.

Meanwhile, CEOs at other companies have taken a less neutral stance regarding guns. Apple CEO Tim Cook is one notable example of this. After the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, he took to Twitter demanding action.