Amazon Prime Day, economic weakness, credit card news and the rise of mobile payments

As Amazon Prime Day approaches, Amazon's flagship credit card offers an instant $200 gift card upon approval, providing an attractive welcome bonus for shoppers. Prime Day, a two-day event with deep discounts on Amazon's inventory, will officially begin on July 16.

In economic news, a significant portion of the US economy is showing signs of weakness, with unemployment reaching its highest point in more than two years. Consumer demand has also declined this summer, with spending figures falling short of last year's summer spending.

California has become the first state to require credit card companies to create a unique four-digit code for stores that sell firearms. This Merchant Category Code (MCC) tracks the type of business where a transaction was made for tax reporting or transaction fees. However, laws banning this code have also been enacted in Tennessee, Georgia, Iowa, and Wyoming.

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to extend tourist card fee caps with EU antitrust regulators for another five years until 2029. The fee caps, due to end in November this year, were initially agreed in 2019 to resolve an EU antitrust investigation.

Capital One's credit card business is set to expand significantly, following its agreement to acquire Discover in an all-stock transaction valued at about $35 billion. This move could put Capital One in the same realm as Visa and Mastercard.

New York City is expanding its program to provide migrant families staying in hotels with prepaid debit cards that will allow them to buy food and essentials. The city plans to distribute 7,300 prepaid debit cards over the next six months, with a total value of more than $2.6 million.

In legal news, the Supreme Court has ruled that a lawsuit by a group of North Dakota merchants challenging a debit card interchange rate set by the Federal Reserve can go forward. This decision annuls the previous resolutions according to which the complaint was time-barred for a period of six years.

Finally, mobile payments are expected to account for more than $1 trillion in U.S. point-of-sale transactions by 2027. This trend is being driven by savvy Americans who have discovered the benefits of debit cards. reward credit, such as the Bilt Mastercard, which allows users to accumulate reward points by paying rent.