Licensing - this is happening in some states but it only applies at the company level, not the individual sales rep level. I'm not familiar with any initiative for individual licensing unfortunately, which would probably serve the industry better.

Verification of a funder being a funder, recourse for backdooring, recourse for brokers who stiff funders - This is basically all just governed by contracts. Does your ISO agreement stipulate what the other party can or can't do with the file you send them? And if caught breaching it, does it offer a remedy? Same with the other way around. So how do you hold the other party accountable if they breach? Well, you can sue them and this is where people in the industry give up 90% of the time because lawsuits cost money and take time and may lead to unwanted discovery. So people tend to write off the experience as a cost of doing business. Regulation won't solve basic b2b contract disputes that people just refuse to pursue on their own.

There are some very big brokers in this industry who stress very strongly how important it is to have lawyers redline agreements before establishing a business relationship. It takes time. It costs money. It may prevent some relationships from actually moving forward. But it will prevent a lot of headache.

Take the care to perform due diligence, negotiate contracts, conduct background checks, and then only then decide to move forward if it makes sense. Too many people skip these steps because they prioritize speed of forming the relationships to get the deals funded above all else.