MPC Hill Blast: Credit Card Companies Charge Everyone More
Credit card swipe fees keep growing out of control. They hit a record $187 billion in 2024. The credit card industry tries every contortion it can to find a way this helps consumers, but they strike out every time. The latest swing and miss was highlighted by the Wall Street Journal.
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MPC Hill Blast: Even Banks Know Competition is Better – Except When it Comes to Credit Cards
This article on payments demonstrates the depths of hypocrisy of the credit card industry in its attempts to push giant swipe fees ever higher. The article reports on how the majority of banks in the nation use multiple payment options (or “rails”) so that they have different paths to settle real-time payments. This makes sense. It provides a back-up, it gives them different providers to work with, and it keeps those providers on their toes to make sure they are keeping up and serving the financial institutions as well as or better than the other option. This is exactly the type of multi-option, competitive framework that Main Street businesses and consumers are asking for with the Credit Card Competition Act. And those same banks that use precisely that strategy everyday on real-time payments are fighting it on credit cards as they (and Visa and Mastercard) work to prevent competition from keeping swipe fees in check.
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MPC Hill Blast: Broad, Overwhelming Support for the Marshall-Durbin Amendment
Support for the Marshall-Durbin Amendment/Credit Card Competition Act, which would create some much-needed competition for credit card companies where none exists today, is much broader than you might think.
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MPC Hill Blast: Needing Dollars, Iran-Backed Militias Turn To Visa and Mastercard – WSJ
“Needing Dollars, Iran-Backed Militias Turn To Visa and Mastercard” In case you missed it, that was the headline of a May 31 news story from the Wall Street Journal. The story makes a number of revelations.
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MPC Hill Blast: Native American Businesses Support the Credit Card Competition Act
Native American businesses get unfairly charged huge credit card swipe fees – just like off-reservation businesses. Here are some of their voices.
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MPC Hill Blast: Small Businesses Are ‘At a Critical Inflection Point’
A recent survey of small businesses found that while 71% have had increased or at least steady sales, 44% have seen profits fall, 91% have had increased operational expenses, 76% have expenses rising faster than sales, and 73% said “government tends to do more to disadvantage small businesses than it does to help small businesses.”
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MPC Hill Blast: Your Favorite Restaurant is in Trouble
The top three restaurant costs are food, labor, and credit card swipe fees. and in the last 4 years food is up 29%, labor 31% and swipe fees 70%.
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Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians Endorses Credit Card Competition Act
ARLINGTON, Wash., May 6, 2025 – The Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, which operates several tribal facilities and businesses on its reservation in Washington state, today called on
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MPC Hill Blast: The Profiteers
No matter what you think about tariffs, one thing is clear: the credit card industry will take its huge cut on every dollar of tariffs they can that make it into consumer prices and will create upward pressure on the prices of virtually everything Americans buy.
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MPC Hill Blast: Record Debt, Record Fees
Americans’ credit card debt has hit a new record: $1.21 Trillion! And, that’s at a time when the average credit card interest rate is 24.21%. So, if credit card debt and interest stayed at those levels this year, the Wall Street banks and other issuers of credit cards would be in line to make . . . $292.941 billion in interest this year.
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