Convenience Store News: Airport Restaurants & Retailers Join Forces With Merchants Payments Coalition
The Merchants Payments Coalition is growing its contingent of groups pushing for lasting change to the payments market, with the Airport Restaurant and Retail Association joining the coalition.
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Mass Market Retailers: Credit card ‘swipe’ fees to account for nearly $3 billion of back-to-school costs in 2024
“The impact of swipe fees on the cost of school supplies reinforces the lesson taught in every high school and college economics class: lack of competition leads to higher prices,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Grocers Association Chief Government Relations Officer and Counsel Christopher Jones said. “Swipe fees make it more expensive for families to send their children to school whether it’s crayons in elementary school or dorm supplies in college. It doesn’t take a degree in economics to see that it’s time for Congress to fix this broken market by passing the Credit Card Competition Act.”
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Chain Drug Review: Credit card ‘swipe’ fees to account for nearly $3 billion of 2024 back-to-school costs
Swipe fees banks charge merchants to process credit card transactions will drive up the price of school and college supplies by almost $3 billion this year and cost the average family between $20 and $30, the Merchants Payments Coalition said.
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Convenience Store News: Majority of Voters Support Federal Action on Credit Card Fees
"These results are clear: Americans by huge margins want Congress to do something about out-of-control credit card swipe fees that are driving up costs for small businesses and prices for consumers," MPC Executive Committee member and NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor said. "These fees have an impact on families across every sector of our society and virtually everyone wants competition to fix this broken market."
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Digital Transactions: In Other News
The Merchants Payments Coalition released a survey that found 55% of likely voters in this fall’s general election support the Credit Card Competition Act while only 7% oppose it, and 38% are unsure. The survey also found 42% of voters are more likely to support a Senate candidate who supports the bill, with only 7% less likely to do so, a margin of 35 percentage points.
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Next City: What I Saw at the Discover-Capital One Merger Hearing
The average household paid $1,100 in swipe fees over the course of 2023, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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The Hill: K Street struggles to decode Trump VP pick Vance
Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member), who is also highly engaged on the Credit Card Competition Act, told The Hill that the senator and his staff “have always been fantastic to work with.” “It is not helpful for people to go in [to Vance’s office] and sling a bunch of BS. They need to know what they’re talking about,” Kantor said.
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Chain Drug Review: Survey shows voters want Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act
“These results are clear: Americans by huge margins want Congress to do something about out-of-control credit card swipe fees that are driving up costs for small businesses and prices for consumers,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “These fees have an impact on families across every sector of our society and virtually everyone wants competition to fix this broken market.”
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Inside Sources/DC Journal: Consumers Back Bill to Lower Credit Card Fees, Poll Shows
More than 55 percent of 2,040 likely voters surveyed by co/efficient said they supported the bill (while only 7 percent were opposed). ... The co/efficient poll, commissioned by the Merchants Payments Coalition, found 42 percent of voters plan to support a U.S. Senate candidate who backs the CCCA (while only 7 percent were less likely to support a candidate who supports the bill). That included 46 percent of Democrats, 41 percent of Republicans, and 37 percent of independents.
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Digital Transactions: A Card Issuer Trade Group Turns Up the Heat in Its Anti-CCCA Campaign
“All the claims about how rewards programs would be harmed by the CCCA have been fact-checked by independent third-parties and shown to be false,” says Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Kantor argues the EPC’s latest campaign shows there is no length to which the EPC will not go to spread misinformation about the credit card legislation. “There are small businesses and labor unions that support the legislation because they realize [the system is broken] and reform is needed,” Kantor says. “The banking industry does not speak for small businesses [or merchants]. The strategy the EPC is taking is not effective in our view because people are not as stupid as the banking industry thinks they are.”
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