CNBC: 'Burdensome' Credit Card Swipe Fees Could Add $2.5 Billion to Back-to-School Spending, Merchants Say
This year, total back-to-school spending is expected to match the 2021 record high of $37 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. The so-called swipe fees banks charge merchants to process credit card transactions on those purchases could total $2.5 billion during the peak shopping season, the Merchants Payments Coalition recently said. “These fees have been soaring for years but are particularly burdensome when families are hit with the high inflation that has weakened buying power this year,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and an executive committee member at the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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Consumer Electronics Daily: Credit Card Fees Expected to Add $2.5B to BTS Supplies Cost
“Swipe fees are a hidden tax on almost everything Americans buy regardless of whether they pay with cards or cash,” said National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor, a member of the MPC executive committee. Such fees have been “soaring for years” but are particularly burdensome during periods of high inflation, Kantor said. Because swipe fees are a percentage of the transaction amount, the fees automatically go up as prices go up, “driving inflation even higher,” Kantor said. “Banks and card networks are raising prices on the backs of American schoolchildren trying to get an education,” Kantor said, urging Congress to “to require competition that would bring these fees under control.” MPC believes banks should set fees independently and should compete to offer the lowest fees
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American Banker: Banks Hit Back at Merchants Over Inflation's Role in Swipe-Fee Debate
“So you have the problem of retailers having to chase their tails,” Doug Kantor, a member of the Merchant Payments Coalition’s executive committee and general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores, said in an interview Thursday. “If they raise prices to cover inflation, then they’re hit with higher fees, and then they have to raise their prices again to cover the higher fees,” he said.
NACS Daily: Swipe Fees Add to Inflation for Americans Celebrating July 4
Swipe fees will add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of everything from food to fireworks as Americans struggling amid rampant inflation celebrate Independence Day this year, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition, of which NACS is an executive committee member.
Credit Union Times: Forget Rain: Swipe Fees Will Ruin July 4 for 'Patriotic American Families,' Says Group
The Merchants Payments Coalition, which has been outspoken over card swipe fees, said the charges are going to “add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of everything from food to fireworks as Americans struggling amid rampant inflation celebrate Independence.”
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Digital Transactions: Merchants and Issuers Are Pouncing on Inflation -- But With Dueling Results
The Merchants Payments Coalition on Wednesday issued a release contending that interchange fees “drive up prices [merchants] charge consumers,” exacerbating the impact of inflation. Interchange, the Washington, D.C.-based group argues, represents merchants’ second-highest operating expense, after labor. All told, swipe fees on purchases made with credit and debit cards last year totaled $137.8 billion in the United States, up 25% in one year, according to the MPC.
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American Banker: Are Cash Discounts the Answer to Merchants' Intensified Swipe-Fee Pain?
Merchants began looking for new ways to cope with higher swipe-fee costs after Visa and Mastercard in April hiked credit card interchange rates. At a Senate U.S. Judiciary Committee hearing last month, retail lobbying groups testified that inflation’s higher prices mean merchants pay proportionately more in swipe fees. ... The Merchants Payments Coalition says U.S. merchants collectively pay more than $100 billion annually in card swipe fees based on some of the highest credit card interchange rates in the world.
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CNN: Retailers Call Out Visa and Mastercard for Fee Hikes That Could Make Inflation Worse
The recent increases are on top of fees that merchants have already been paying to the credit card companies, said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and an executive committee member of the Merchants Payment Coalition. Credit, debit and prepaid cards were used to make $9.4 trillion in purchases last year, according to the Nilson Report, a publication covering the payment industry. Out of those purchases, merchants paid about $138 billion in processing fees, Nilson reported. "The increases a couple of weeks ago are really just the tail on the dog," said Kantor, who estimates the hikes will result in an added $1.2 billion in fees this year.
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NRF: Banks Win, Consumers Lose -- Important Facts About Excessive Credit Card Swipe Fees
MPC Executive Committee member Doug Kantor was among the witnesses as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on how price-fixed credit card swipe fees are driving up inflation.
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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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