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POLITICS
POLICY
Payments, Price Gouging, and COVID-19 ETA and its member companies play critical roles in pandemic relief and recovery efforts—and in fighting fraud By Scott Talbott
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ost Americans have been confined to their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic—but that certainly does not mean that work has stopped in the halls of government. In fact, the opposite is true: We have seen policymakers at every level—municipal, state, both houses of Congress, federal regulators, and the White House—jump into action to make sure that communities are supported and safe, and that workers and employers across the country can continue to make ends meet in an undoubtably challenging time.
Policy Updates
The most consequential action following the economic shutdown was the enactment of Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was signed into law in March to provide economic support to businesses and consumers facing economic hardship as a result of the pandemic. As providers of financial technology products and services specifically designed to help merchants pay and be paid, ETA members played an important role in the development and implementation of the CARES Act. In fact, many of our members participated in the Paycheck Protection Program as lenders and quickly and securely delivered billions of dol8 Spring 2020 | TRANSACTION trends
lars in economic relief funds to small businesses when they needed it most. Our members also played an important role in delivering relief funds to consumers in a secure, innovative, and accessible way. ETA members are powering prepaid, debit and credit, contactless payments, direct deposit, ACH, and other electronic forms of payment for consumers, particularly underserved consumers, to receive and use the funds. At the state level, ETA successfully advocated for state policymakers to classify the payments technology ecosystem as “essential” so that our members could ensure that the critical infrastructure powering the U.S. economy is maintained safely. This crisis is not over, and ETA anticipates that Congress will take more legislative action to help American businesses survive. We are proud to serve as the unified voice for the payments technology ecosystem and provide a voice for the essential services that our industry provides merchants, consumers, and our economy as a whole. We will continue to educate policymakers on the ways our members stand ready to assist and push to make sure that any future relief measures feature capital for small businesses. To this end, we have joined America’s Recovery Fund