Will Nevada be the location for “Payment Bank Charters”

Nevada may soon give retailers a new weapon in the swipe-fee wars. Assembly Bill 500 now moving through Carson City would create a special “payment bank” charter for non-lending institutions that plug directly into FedNow, Fedwire and ACH, bypassing the card-network tollgates that add 2 – 3 % to every sale.

The bill, championed by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, caps the state’s cut at 0.0025 % per transaction and bars payment banks from making loans or holding insured deposit.  Nevada’s Financial Institutions Division would supervise capital, liquidity and consumer-protection plans instead of the FDIC.

Supporters such as the Retail Association of Nevada argue that the model mirrors low-cost European acquiring structures and could turn the Silver State into a fintech hub, while critics in the Nevada Bankers Association warn of competitive imbalances and new oversight costs. Lawmakers must act before the session adjourns on June 2; if they do, Nevada will become the first U.S. state to license uninsured payment banks, following Georgia’s 2024 acquirer charter for Fiserv.

For merchants, processors and FinTech’s frustrated by soaring network fees, AB500 offers a glimpse of an alternate future where real-time rails, not plastic, dominate checkout economics. Stakeholders will testify later this month.  We’ll be watching!  For more Insights from RPY, go to https://www.rpyin.com/insights. 

Since our founding in 2010, RPY Innovations has partnered with innovative technologists to build hundreds of class-leading embedded payments businesses. Through our work, we understand first-hand the challenges of balancing the health of the payments program profitability amidst evolving interchange updates while juggling increasing compliance burdens.