Lost in much of the hoopla regarding pending credit card legislation is the impact a proposed amendment may have on businesses as well as consumers. The proposed Welch-Shuster Credit Card Interchange Fees Act of 2009, or H.R. 2382, is intended “to amend the Truth in Lending Act to prohibit unfair practices in electronic payment system networks, and for other purposes,” according to govtrack.us. The proposal was introduced and referred to committee in the House earlier this week, also according to govtrack.

The bill would, among other things, let merchants refuse to accept cards with especially high fees, allow retailers to set minimum purchase levels for customers using charge cards, and finally, let them choose the financial routing system that’s least costly. Nothing too unreasonable. more

Now that the IFRS road map comment letter period has closed, SEC staffers are assessing the letters and (presumably) will soon make a recommendation to their leaders on next steps. The SEC then will meet publicly and discuss the staff’s recommendations.

“Those recommendations,” notes D.J. Gannon, national leader of Deloitte’s IFRS Center of Excellence, “would address finalizing the road map, which is expected to be published as part of the SEC’s Codification of Financial Reporting Policies, and the early use proposal. Any decision to mandate the use of IFRS will require a separate rule proposal.”

Gannon does not expect to hear too much from the SEC until later this year, after the G-20 weighs in with recommendations on the issue.

Until then, how prepared are U.S. companies — and how prepared should they be — for adoption? more

Do you know where your cash is? In a recent survey by APQC, an independent research firm, nine out of ten CFOs said that they are scrambling to figure out where the cash is and how to keep a firm grip on it.

This is the direct fallout from the ongoing credit crisis. Even credit-worthy companies are finding credit more costly, if they are finding it at all. Two-thirds of companies now have debt ratings below investment-grade, reports APQC senior research fellow Mary Driscoll.

As a result, APQC’s Liquidity Management Poll found that 90 percent of finance executives are taking steps to generate cash internally – a strategy that many neglected during the era of easy money, which only ended, say, two years ago. more

Now that I’ve weighed in with some insights on the IFRS comment letters the SEC received, I’ve been asking IFRS experts what they think.

D.J. Gannon, national leader of Deloitte’s IFRS Center of Excellence, put it succinctly. “The key theme coming from the comment letters is how to achieve a single set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards,” he told me. “This is the ‘convergence vs. adoption’ issue.”

The SEC’s road map contemplates eventual adoption of IFRS for U.S. public companies beginning in 2014. Although some folks support this, others have argued that convergence (a process currently taking place between the FASB and IASB) is the better route.

Gannon identified a few other important themes running through the comment letters. more