American Banker: Swipe fees get renewed Washington focus in aftermath of election
While Durbin and Republican lead cosponsor Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., made a show of inviting the executives of the two card networks, neither are listed as attending the hearing. "The card industry, on the other hand, wants to hide the facts and pretend the problem doesn't exist," said the Merchant Payments Coalition executive committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores general counsel Doug Kantor in a statement. "That's why Visa and Mastercard's CEOs have refused to show up for a hearing and have fought to avoid any hearings or votes on legislation to bring desperately needed competition to the broken payments market."
READ MORE +
Chain Drug Review: Senate Judiciary Committee to address rising credit card “swipe” fees
“We look forward to this hearing because we want as many opportunities as possible to talk about the growing financial hardship excessive swipe fees have caused for American families, small businesses, and the economy,” said Doug Kantor, a member of MPC’s Executive Committee and General Counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
READ MORE +
Digital Transactions: How Illinois’s Interchange Case Has Transfixed the Industry
The Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the Illinois Fuel and Retail Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Retail Federation, and FMI, the food-industry association, are the merchant groups that this fall filed a request to intervene in the case as defendants. The groups requested to join the suit because they feel they could provide the court with more facts and insights about how the payments system works. The move is part of an effort to refute plaintiffs’ claims that the law will negatively disrupt the payments system, according to Doug Kantor, (MPC Executive Committee member and) general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
READ MORE +
Digital Transactions: Who Will Benefit Most Becomes the Latest Flash Point in the Battle Over the Illinois Interchange Law
“Merchants that receive a lot of tips and pay the most in excise taxes are small merchants,” says Doug Kantor, (MPC Executive Committee member and) general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, which has petitioned the court to join the lawsuit as a defendant. Excluding how much merchants will save by not paying interchange on tips and excise taxes raises serious questions about the report’s accuracy, Kantor argues. “The [report’s] numbers aren’t accurate, because they’ve been cherry-picked to show only the largest merchants would see the biggest savings,” Kantor says. “It’s as though they want to rescore the World Series to show only runs scored by base hits as opposed to all runs scored. [The EPC] is not looking at the law as a whole. Instead, it’s using the data to support a false narrative it has created so there is a bogeyman.”
READ MORE +
Center Square: Controversial swipe fee law in Illinois goes to court
"The U.S. credit card industry will still collect the highest fees in the world, even with the Illinois law in place,” said National Association of Convention Stores General Counsel (and MPC Executive Committee member) Doug Kantor. “There is no justification for slowing the Illinois law from taking effect.”
READ MORE +
Jacksonville (ill.) Journal-Courier: The backward reasoning behind debit card fees
Op-ed by MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor says the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit over debit card practices shows “Visa has bent the antitrust laws beyond recognition to monopolize the debit card network market.”
READ MORE +
Wall Street Journal: Credit Cards Don’t Require Signatures. So Why Do We Still Sign?
“Traditions have this odd way of sticking around,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member).
READ MORE +
Digital Transactions: Motions Fly in the Battle Over the Illinois Interchange Case Ahead of an Oct. 30 Hearing
The groups requested to join the suit because they feel they could provide the court with more facts and insights about how the payments system works. The move is part of an effort to refute plaintiffs’ claims that the law will negatively disrupt the payments system, according to Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member). ... Merchant organizations viewed the latest motion filed by the plaintiffs as a sign the plaintiffs are concerned about the merits of their case. “It’s not surprising that [the plaintiffs] are concerned the court might learn the truth from the merchant organizations seeking to intervene in the case,” Kantor says.
READ MORE +
Vixio Payments Compliance: DoJ Visa Lawsuit Could Sway US Credit Space, Swipe Fee Debate
According to Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member), the case could add “rocket fuel” to the debate. “The CCCA has some momentum and support, but when you show people in such a stark way the bad behaviour that has led to this situation, it's much harder for anyone to deny that some serious changes need to be made. It should provide a lot of additional momentum,” he told Vixio.
READ MORE +
Digital Transactions: The Durbin Amendment Enters the Battle Over the Illinois Interchange Law
(MPC Executive Committee memeber) Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, which joined a group of organizations filing amicus briefs Friday on behalf of the IIFPA, says Durbin’s brief is defendable. “There is nothing in the Durbin Amendment that pre-empts state law, or prevents states from going further,” when it comes to interchange pricing, Kantor says.
READ MORE +