Date: May 25, 2016
Payments Industry
Cassels Brock provides payments industry participants with expert legal advice and counsel on a diverse
range of regulatory and transactional matters. Our Payments Industry team is comprised of lawyers with
complementary legal skills and experience across a range of legal disciplines who share a common interest in
the payments sector.
Our cross-disciplinary approach enables us to give timely, cost-effective and results-oriented advice to local,
national and international payments sector clients. Team members have developed an understanding of the
payments industry that enhances the value we can provide to our clients.
We are well suited to serving participants in the payments industry, at all levels of the supply chain. Whether
advising a major provider of payment services, or advising a supplier of goods or services to a payments
provider, we have substantive and significant coverage of the broad areas of Canadian law relating to the
payments industry and knowledge of the business and regulatory framework in which players in the sector
operate. Our service to payments industry clients has included providing advice on:
Corporate and regulatory matters for issuers of credit, debit and prepaid cards
The development, establishment and operation of credit, debit and payment card programs, including
prepaid cards
Information technology service agreements
Distribution arrangements
Payments system legislation, regulations and rules, including compliance with the requirements of the
Canadian Payments Association
Cross-border regulatory issues
Competition law issues
Compliance with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws
Compliance with privacy laws and consumer protection laws
Drafting and interpretation of policies, consumer and business applications and agreements
Trade-marks, advertising and promotion
Electronic commerce and related information technology matters
Business acquisitions, dispositions and alliances
Examples of recent work include:
Advising Interac Association, Canada’s pre-eminent debit network
Counsel to one of Canada’s leading credit card issuers (a Schedule II bank)
Counsel to VersaPay Corporation, a Canadian payment processor (ranked #1 on Profit Magazine’s Hot 50
list in 2009)
Representing a Schedule I bank on its payments, information technology and outsourcing arrangements
Counsel to a regional commuter transportation service in connection with its launch of a prepaid card for use
across interconnected commuter rail and bus systems
Advising financial institutions on electronic contracts
Representing a Schedule II bank in its $650 million purchase of a credit card issuing business
Advising US-based law firms and issuers of prepaid cards on Canadian payment system rules, consumer
protection laws and compliance
Members of our Payments Industry team write for industry publications and speak at industry events and
seminars. Members of our team are repeatedly recognized as leading lawyers by such prominent publications
as the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, World’s Leading Women in Business Law, Best Lawyers in Canada
and Chambers Global - The World's Leading Lawyers.