Moodie Davitt Report: ARRA joins Merchants Payments Coalition amid calls for fair credit card swipe fees
The Airport Restaurant and Retail Association has joined the Merchants Payments Coalition, a nonprofit group of retailers advocating for fair and competitive credit and debit card swipe fees for merchants. ARRA Executive Director Andrew Weddig said: “Airport merchants continue to recover from the pandemic and still face many challenges including high credit card swipe fees that drive up the cost of doing business and prices for our customers.
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Credit Unions Today: Airport Restaurant and Retail Association Joins Group Backing Passage of Credit Card Competition Act
The Merchants Payments Coalition—which strongly supports the Credit Card Competition Act in Congress that credit unions equally strongly oppose—announced it has added a new member: the Airport Restaurant and Retail Association.
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WMAR-TV: Businesses contemplate passing credit card swipe fees to customers in surcharges or cash discounts
“Merchants and mainstream businesses have been waiting a very long time to get some basic relief here. They filed lawsuits in 2005 to try to change the system. They're still going,” said (MPC Executive Committee member) Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
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Business Insider: Why your checking account may no longer be free
According to the Merchants Payments Coalition, Mastercard announced in April it was planning to increase certain credit-card fees (despite an agreement to reduce credit card swipe fees).
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Digital Transactions: How the Supreme Court Has Set up an Intense Struggle Over Sellers’ Debit Card Costs
Other observers, though, caution that merchants angered by their debit card costs are likely to take a wait-and-see attitude now that the Corner Post matter is settled. “I think they’ll let the suit play out. A lot has already happened,” notes Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member).
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Digital Transactions: The Big Credit Card Settlement Appears Headed for a Trial. Who Will Win?
“Judge Brodie seems to believe the settlement doesn’t work. The next step is to go to trial,” says (MPC Executive Committee member) Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “That’s the right call and a good thing.”
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PYMNTS: Swipe Fee Settlement Judge Says $30 Billion Agreement Is ‘Paltry’
Brodie had indicated earlier in June that she was likely to reject the deal, which came as welcome news to groups like the National Association of Convenience Stores. “We’re gratified to see that the court recognized how bad this settlement was,” Doug Kantor, general counsel to the association (and MPC Executive Committee member), said at the time.
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WIBC-FM: Visa and Mastercard Cartel $30 Billion Swipe Fee Settlement Rejected By US Judge
MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor: "The very definition of a cartel is they put all these guys together and say you have to take every single person’s card like it’s from the same company or none of them. And putting competitors together. That is the very definition of cartel. And obviously I use it because. It carries other overtones for people and they understand, ohh, wait, cartels are bad, we don’t like those. There’s a problem. It gets people to notice what Visa and MasterCard like to keep hidden, which is that they have these gigantic fees."
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Retail Systems: Credit card giants face setback as $30bn payments fee agreement thrown out
The ruling could potentially pave the way for a trial, unless Visa and Mastercard can negotiate more favourable terms for merchants. Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member), welcomed the decision, stating that the settlement "didn't address the problem of Visa, Mastercard and banks forming a cartel to issue credit cards and set fees".
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Bloomberg Law: Judges’ Antitrust Scrutiny Grows With Nixed Visa-Mastercard Deal
Brodie’s decision received praise from the Merchants Payments Coalition, a Washington, D.C.,-based group of retailers advocating for competition in the payments market that believes the deal would have been bad for small business merchants and their customers. “We’re glad to see that the judge recognized the inadequacies of the settlement,” said Doug Kantor, member of the coalition’s executive committee. “There is really no relief from the central claims of the case. It didn’t change the central tenets of how Visa and Mastercard do business.”
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