card tap payment
MPC In the News November 01, 2024

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.”

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POS QR code scanning
MPC In the News November 01, 2024

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.

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choosing card payment
MPC In the News October 30, 2024

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.”

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Miscellaneous October 24, 2024

MPC Hill Blast: Justice Departments Under Democratic and Republican Administrations Have Condemned Visa’s Monopolization of the Market

The Justice Department recently filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Visa. The complaint alleges that Visa has been monopolizing the debit card market, paying rivals not to innovate or compete with them, and extracting fees that inflate prices of “nearly everything.”

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Miscellaneous October 22, 2024

MPC Hill Blast: 'Visa Wanted a Vast Empire. First, it had to beat back its foes.' – WSJ

On October 19th, the Wall Street Journal published an expose on how Visa used its market power to block competition in the credit card market. The findings are eye-opening and, along with the recent Department of Justice lawsuit against Visa, add to the growing evidence of the lack of a free market in the space.

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online card payment
MPC In the News October 16, 2024

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.”

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credit cards detail
MPC In the News October 14, 2024

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).

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card tap payment
MPC In the News October 14, 2024

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.

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online card payment
MPC In the News October 10, 2024

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.

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green payment cards
MPC In the News October 08, 2024

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.

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