{"id":4575,"date":"2019-05-15T15:57:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T15:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2022-02-24T22:21:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T22:21:20","slug":"new-requirements-coming-this-fall-to-maryland-merchant-agreements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/new-requirements-coming-this-fall-to-maryland-merchant-agreements\/","title":{"rendered":"New Requirements Coming This Fall to Maryland Merchant Agreements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The state of Maryland recently passed legislation that will require changes to merchant processing agreements in that state. What does this mean for payment facilitators?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Signed by Maryland\u2019s governor on April 30, the law requires payments providers to include specific disclosures regarding early termination fees, expiration and renewal dates and contact information \u2013 and to do so in a specific, conspicuous way, according to a\u00a0post   on\u00a0<em>Electronic Payments Law<\/em>, a blog written by attorneys at law firm Jaffe Raitt Heuer &amp; Weiss, P.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new legislation also restricts termination fees or penalties, prohibiting fees of more than $500 for termination before the initial term of the contract expires, and prohibiting any fees at all for cancelling the initial agreement after that term, the post said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Payment facilitators should seek guidance from their sponsors regarding the new law, according to Holli Targan, attorney and partner with Jaffe.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cThe PF sponsor contract most likely requires the PF sponsored merchant agreement to comply with laws. Our interpretation of the law would indicate that it applies to PFs, and therefore the PF should revise its sponsored merchant application and agreement to incorporate the terms required by the law,\u201d she told PaymentFacilitator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new law applies to Maryland merchants only, leaving PFs with a couple of options for implementing it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf the PF does or might process for a Maryland merchant, it could take the \u2018lowest common denominator\u2019 approach and revise the form of a merchant agreement across the board in order to comply with the law, or it could set out a separate section in the contract that indicates that the provisions set forth in that Section apply to Maryland business entities,\u201d Targan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She pointed out that the law \u2013 which is geared to protecting smaller merchants \u2013 doesn\u2019t apply to certain contracts, including those \u201cthat may be terminated without the assessment of fees, fines, penalties or liquidated damages, or to contracts entered into with a merchant that employs 50 or more employees or estimates that it will generate more than $2,000,000 in credit card or electronic transactions per year.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPFs should analyze whether either of those exemptions apply to their business practices, and if not, then PFs will need to revise their merchant applications and agreements to incorporate the law\u2019s requirements,\u201d Targan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The law goes into effect on October 1.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state of Maryland recently passed legislation that will require changes to merchant processing agreements in that state. What does this mean for payment facilitators?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[257,742,876,877],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-electronic-payments","tag-regulation","tag-the-payment-facilitator-landscape","tag-the-payment-facilitator-model"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8385,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions\/8385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}