NACS Daily: Merchants Urge Senate to Reject Bill Delaying Debit Swipe Fee Action
“Every day of further delay in the Fed’s consideration of its proposed rule means another day in which large card-issuing banks are deducting significantly more money out of debit transactions than is reasonable, proportional or allowable under the law Congress passed,” the groups said in a letter. “That is why financial industry trade associations are seeking to delay the Fed as long as possible from taking action to update its 2011 regulation—delay preserves what for them is an enormously lucrative status quo.” The letter was signed by 218 groups ranging from consumer advocates to retail trade associations and sent to members of the Senate. Signers included the Merchants Payments Coalition and other national organizations along with state groups from every state and Puerto Rico.
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Payments Dive: Pennsylvania may ban interchange fees on sales tax
“There’s a recognition that there’s a very fundamental unfairness going on here: The actual tax dollars that merchants are collecting on behalf of the state are being taken away by the credit card companies,” NACS General Counsel (and MPC Executive Committee member) Doug Kantor said earlier this month regarding the Illinois law. He noted Texas and Florida are among other states considering such legislation.
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Finextra: US judge rejects $30bn interchange fee settlement
Merchant Payments Coalition executive committee member Christopher Jones says: "Thankfully, the judge made the right call in recognising what a bad deal this would have been for Main Street merchants and their customers."
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Epoch Times: Federal Judge Blocks Massive Swipe Fee Settlement Between Visa and Mastercard
The earlier filing drew praise from the Merchants Payments Coalition and similar groups. “This proposed settlement would have done nothing to address the problem of how Visa and Mastercard centrally price fix swipe fees,” Christopher Jones, (a member of the MPC Executive Committee), said in a statement in mid-June. “Instead, the settlement would have locked in cartel pricing.”
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Axios: Visa-Mastercard credit card fees settlement rejected
The Merchants Payment Coalition assailed the deal reached in March. "We're glad to see the judge recognize how bad this settlement was," Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores and member of the MPC, tells Axios in an interview. "Visa and Mastercard fix prices and tie all the banks together into a giant pricing cartel — and the settlement didn't correct any of those problems."
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Progressive Grocer: Retailers Support Decision to Reject Swipe Settlement Deal
“Visa and Mastercard wanted a settlement that would let them keep price-fixing swipe fees and blocking competition,” said MPC Executive Committee member and National Grocers Association Chief Government Relations Officer and Counsel Christopher Jones. “Thankfully, the judge made the right call in recognizing what a bad deal this would have been for Main Street merchants and their customers. It’s extremely unusual for a judge to reject a settlement at the preliminary stage, so this shows how far Visa and Mastercard’s proposal missed the mark.”
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Politico Morning Money: The fight over credit card swipe fees hits the road
“It really shows the momentum and the trends here,” said Doug Kantor, the general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores and a member at the Merchants Payments Coalition, adding that the efforts being undertaken at the state level are “part of a (growing) political and policy recognition that there’s a bigger problem here that has to be dealt with.”
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The Paypers: Visa, Mastercard's proposed antitrust settlement to be declined
In 2023 alone, interchange fees accounted for USD 172 million, nearly doubling in the last decade, as per the information provided by the Merchants Payments Coalition, which represents retailers, grocers, convenience stores, and gas stations.
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Philadelphia Business Journal: Banks decry proposed Pennsylvania legislation as $147M giveaway to big retailers
Citing data provided by the Merchants Payments Coalition, Scott and Samuelson said swipe fees are most merchants’ highest operating cost after labor and must be built into pricing, driving up expenses for the average family by close to $1,000 a year.
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Law360: Novel Ill. Swipe Fee Law Sparks New Banks V. Retailers Battle
Doug Kantor, (MPC Executive Committee member and) general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores, called the legislation "important and necessary." While NACS does not lobby at the state level and was not involved in negotiating the IFPA, it has encouraged state counterparts around the country to take up the swipe fee cause. "Credit card companies, unseen by almost anyone, take away the sales tax dollars that people give to their local stores before the stores can give it to the state, so those retailers have to dive into their own pockets to make up for the tax shortfall that the credit card industry creates," Kantor said. "It's clearly unjust. Retailers collect those taxes as a service to the state, and they shouldn't be penalized for it."
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