NACS Daily: Merchants Say It's Time for Fed to Resolve Debit Routing and Fees
“It’s been a full year since the Fed said it wanted to resolve this issue once and for all, and the Senate has now given Chairman Powell a vote of confidence to act on what’s best for the American economy and consumers,” said Leon Buck, a member of the MPC Executive Committee and vice president for government relations, banking and financial services at the National Retail Federation.
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Restaurant Business: Restaurants Ask Congress for Relief on Swipe Fees
The Merchants Payments Coalition, has been pressuring Congress for decades to revise the way the credit card industry works. It notes that MasterCard and Visa have an advantage in setting swipe fees as high as they can. The higher the fees, the more that a partnered bank will collect from processing card charges, and hence the more likely they’ll be to issue a card by the card company with the highest swipe charges. “Banks should set fees independently and should compete to offer the lowest fees,” the group maintains.
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Cox Television: Top Executives from Mastercard and Visa Face Congress Over High Swipe Fees
MPC Executive Committee member Doug Kantor called for swipe fee competition at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: "People have more money in their pockets when there's competition. They can spend more and that consumer spending helps drive the economy."
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Payments Dive: Durbin Proposes Card Fee Reforms, Not Legislation
The National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition seemed to be wanting more definitive action when they chimed in Wednesday ahead of the hearing. “We hope this hearing will be a landmark step toward bringing about the transparency and competition that is missing from our nation’s broken payments system,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said in the release.
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Nexstar Television: Senators Criticize Swipe Fee Changes Affecting Merchants and Customers
MPC Executive Committee member Doug Kantor testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee: "These fees can get set well beyond any semblance of value."
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Convenience Store News: NACS Encourages C-Store Industry to #FightSwipeflation
During Wednesday's hearing, NACS' General Counsel Doug Kantor submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the convenience store industry and the Merchants Payments Coalition
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Progressive Grocer: Retailers Weigh in on Rising Swipe Fees at Senate Hearing
The Merchants Payments Coalition, which represents retailers, supermarkets, convenience stores, gasoline stations, online merchants and others, has urged Congress to bring competition to the U.S. credit card market, contending that Visa and Mastercard’s domination of the market has stifled innovation and caused rising swipe fees that are particularly burdensome for small businesses, drive up prices for consumers and contribute to inflation.
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American Banker: Merchants Lobby for Lower Swipe Fees Ahead of Judiciary Committee Hearing
Merchants claiming that inflation is exacerbating their ongoing woes as credit and debit card interchange fees continue to rise will air their grievances in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday with top financial services industry executives.
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Bankrate: Card Networks' Swipe Fee Changes Could Raise Prices for Consumers
Any increases to retailer costs as a result of an increase in swipe fees will likely be factored into prices and trickle down to consumers as retailers try to recoup these costs. According to the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC), a retail industry trade group focusing on reforming the U.S. payments system, the average family pays more than $700 a year in higher prices resulting from swipe fees.
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Payments Dive: Card Companies Called on Congressional Carpet
The Merchants Payments Coalition, which represents retailers, grocery and convenience stores, gas stations and online merchants, and the National Retail Federation praised Congress for calling the hearing and attacked the card companies for their practices.
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