Technical and Legal Concerns about Global Card Payments

Abstract

Well into the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is fair to say that card payments are the cyberspace payment method by definition and, therefore, in order not to deter the development of commercial transactions carried out by electronic means, they should be accepted globally in the same or similar manner, which also means that the technology and rules applicable to them should be the same or closely harmonized. However, as this chapter tries to explain, while there are some characteristics that have made cards’ acceptance truly global in scope, there have been historical, economic and regulatory forces that resulted in different jurisdictions favoring the use of different technologies and different legal architectures for the deployment and control of cards as a means of payment, which may both obstruct the possibility of extending the benefits derived from the use of card payments and avoid the extension of the negative features associated with their utilization.