MPC In The News
April 22, 2021
Regulatory, legislative and court confrontations over the card network companies’ fees are ratcheting up pressure again for reform of the behemoths’ practices. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin was riled up when he leaned into his microphone to speak last month at an antitrust subcommittee hearing. The source of his consternation? The dominance of Visa and […]
March 19, 2021
The Justice Department is looking at Visa Inc’s debit practices, the company said on Friday, after reports the United States was investigating whether the credit card company uses anticompetitive practices in the debit-card market.
March 17, 2021
The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC), another group of retailers, restaurants, gas stations and other merchants focused on the credit card fee issue, took the argument a step further, calling on Visa and Mastercard to lower their fees.
March 16, 2021
The card brands are taking their last major step in the U.S. EMV migration by enforcing a liability shift at fuel stations. The April 17 deadline has been delayed multiple times — it was originally set for October 2015 — even as the rest of the country marched ahead with EMV conversions at the point […]
March 16, 2021
The Merchants Payments Coalition welcomed Visa and Mastercard’s announcement that nearly $1.2 billion in credit card swipe fee increases will be postponed for a year, but said existing fees are already too high and need to be addressed by Congress.
March 16, 2021
Durbin and Rep. Peter Welch, D-VT, sent a letter to the companies this month urging them not to increase fees. The merchants’ trade group Merchants Payments Coalition has also been pressing the credit card companies to hold off on a hike that would cause retailers and merchants to pass increases to consumers.
March 16, 2021
The major card networks have postponed a planned interchange fee hike yet again in light of the reality of an ongoing pandemic, pleas from merchant groups and pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. But while this one-year delay provides immediate relief, it doesn’t address the long-term concerns critics have raised over how much power the […]
March 16, 2021
Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are postponing plans to boost the fees U.S. merchants pay when consumers use credit cards online, pushing back the changes another year to April 2022 because of the pandemic.
March 04, 2021
The grocery industry has described itself as “extremely pleased” by a letter sent by federal lawmakers encouraging major credit card companies to cancel planned increases in interchange fees, also known as “swipe fees,” which food retailers maintain would be detrimental to businesses and consumers still struggling during the pandemic.
March 03, 2021
Last year the major card networks decided, amid the pandemic, to hold off on adjusting interchange fees until April of 2021. This would be the most substantial change to the interchange rate structure in a decade, and the card networks have not signaled plans to delay it further.