Merchants Say Soaring Bank Profits Show Need to Pass Credit Card Competition Act
High profits reported last week by three of the nation’s largest credit card-issuing banks show the need for Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act, MPC said.
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Digital Transactions: A Card Industry Group Cites Retailers’ Price Boosts And Surcharges in Its Latest Campaign to Stop the CCCA
Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores: “The EPC can cast aspersions all it wants on merchants, but all it shows is desperation on their part.”
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Payments Dive: Visa, Mastercard CEOs Throw Hearing Off Track
Retail and merchant trade groups, including the Merchants Payments Coalition and National Association of Convenience Stores, have supported the legislation, contending that the fees keep rising despite efforts to keep them in check. That camp is confident that the hearing will be rescheduled, according to Doug Kantor, who is general counsel for the association and an MPC executive committee member. “We’re happy to show up anytime any place in any form to talk about this issue and it’s telling that the other side is not,” Kantor said in a Tuesday interview. “It tells me that they’re afraid to talk about it because they know the merits aren’t on their side.”
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Digital Transactions: Consumers Don’t See Any Benefit from the Credit Card Bill, a Bankers’ Group Contends
“A whole range of consumer groups have come out in favor of this bill. Do the bankers really have consumers’ interests at heart?” Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, says by email. Kantor charges that card issuers falsely claim the sky is falling when attempts are made to rein in their business practices. “And they make the same false claims whether they are talking about fees they charge consumers, their capital standards, or fees they charge merchants,” he says. “Asking people if they want the sky to fall or not isn’t a legitimate way to measure consumer sentiment and doesn’t do anything to undermine the fact that people overwhelmingly support the Credit Card Competition Act.”
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Credit Unions Today: Despite Recent Court Settlement, Mastercard to Raise Fees by More Than $250 Million, Merchants Group Says
“This new increase proves the credit card companies are continuing to take advantage of Main Street,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “They made a show of ‘settling’ legal claims, but nothing in the settlement limits the fees that go directly to Visa and Mastercard. That leaves them free to continue to increase these fees and they are doing it already. The only answer is for Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act and bring fair market competition to the badly broken payments market.”
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American Banker: The forces driving JPMorgan Chase to build a digital media business
The Merchants Payments Coalition, which has been lobbying for swipe-fee reform for years through other methods and supports passage of the proposed Credit Card Competition Act backed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and other lawmakers, isn't wowed by the "very small relief" merchants might see from the latest proposal to cap credit card interchange.
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Bloomberg Law: Mastercard Still Raising Some Fees After Retailer Settlement
The card company plans to raise its network “assessment” fee to 0.14% from 0.13%, equating to an annual increase of $259.1 million, based on the more than $2 trillion in Mastercard transactions last year, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition, a Washington-based group of retailers that advocates against higher payments fees. The group obtained documents shared with Bloomberg Law showing the increase. Retailers say any fees charged to banks get passed through to them.
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Mastercard Plans to Raise Credit and Debit Card Fees by Over $250 Million Despite Settlement
Almost immediately after agreeing to reduce “swipe” fees charged to merchants to process credit card transactions, Mastercard plans to increase fees for both credit and debit card transactions by more than $250 million this month, MPC said.
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Restaurant Business: Despite last week's reduction offer, Mastercard is increasing some credit-card fees
One week after Mastercard offered to temper the fees restaurants and retailers pay per credit card transaction, a group representing those merchants says it’s learned the financial giant intends to raise another charge it levies on business partners. According to the Merchants Payments Coalition, the credit card company is planning to increase what is known as an assessment fee to 0.14% as of April 15, an increase of one one-hundredth of a point. The higher charge would apply to both credit and debit payments made with a Mastercard, the Coalition said.
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Digital Transactions: Mastercard Plans a Network Fee Hike for Later This Month. Merchants Aren’t Happy
Not surprisingly, the fee increase is not being well-received by the MPC and its membership. “Merchants regularly see network fees increase and new ones raised,” says Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “Most of the industry does not see last week’s settlement as a victory as it has a loophole that leaves the door open for Visa and Mastercard to raise network fees, which this is,” Kantor adds. “There will be a lot of anger and frustration from merchants over this. This increase just reinforces the experience merchants have had that, when it comes to network fees, they lose.”
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