NACS Daily: Swipe Fees Limit Holiday Spending for Consumers
The Merchants Payments Coalition released a new TV commercial that explains how soaring credit card swipe fees are limiting what consumers can afford to buy this holiday season.
READ MORE +Credit Unions Today: Swipe Fees Are the Real Grinch This Holiday Season, Say Merchants in New TV Spot
The ad is being sponsored by the Merchants Payments Coalition in support of the Credit Card Competition Act, which is supported by merchants and opposed by financial institutions, including credit unions. The 30-second commercial, which is being run by MPC member NACS, and as CUToday.info reported earlier, it is the latest to air as part of a seven-figure advertising campaign.
READ MORE +TV Ad Says Congress Should Pass Credit Card Competition Act 'For Happier Holidays'
Soaring credit card “swipe” fees are limiting what consumers can afford to buy this holiday season, according to a new TV commercial unveiled by the Merchants Payments Coalition.
READ MORE +Topeka Capital-Journal: Credit Card 'Swipe' Fees Are 10 Times Hollywood Box Office Receipts
Like other businesses, swipe fees are one of a theater's highest expenses and, across retail, drove up prices for the average family by $900 last year, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.
READ MORE +Politico Influence: Merchants Tweak Visa Over Swipe Fees
The National Association for Convenience Stores, a member of the Merchant Payments Coalition of retailers, supermarkets, restaurants, drug stores and more that has pushed Congress to rein in card companies over so-called swipe fees, is funding a soccer-centric ad buy promoting legislation aimed at diluting the market dominance of just a few card companies.
READ MORE +Supermarket News: Credit Card Swipe Fees Get a Swift 'Kick' in the Pants
The National Association for Convenience Stores (NACS) is taking to the airways in the latest move to pressure payments card processors Visa and Mastercard to allow additional networks to process bank card transactions. The group, a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC), just launched a new commercial nodding to Visa’s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup — calling out the company for refusing to allow competition over swipe fees.
READ MORE +Digital Transactions: Backed by a Merchant Group, a TV Ad Pushes the Case for Controlling Credit Card Costs
The 30-second commercial, which lays heavy emphasis on how Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. frustrate “free-market competition” by setting credit card interchange rates, shows a player kicking a soccer ball toward a net to score a goal, only to have the ball blocked by an oversized credit card. The ad is sponsored by the National Association of Convenience Stores and backed by the Merchants Payments Coalition, an advocacy group that has long lobbied against what it views as non-competitive setting of credit card acceptance rates by the two global networks.
READ MORE +NACS Daily: TV Ad Blows the Whistle on Swipe Fees During World Cup
“Visa is spending untold millions of dollars to promote competition in soccer even though it refuses to allow competition over swipe fees and how transactions are routed,” said Doug Kantor, NACS general counsel and Merchants Payments Coalition executive committee member. “Visa says it wants to ‘give football fans from around the world the best way to pay,’ but it should start by allowing competition over the hidden fees that are charged every time soccer fans and other consumers use a credit card. If competition is good on the soccer field, it’s good on the swipe fee playing field as well.”
READ MORE +TV Ad Targets Visa's Promotion of Competition at World Cup While Blocking Competition Over Swipe Fees
The Merchants Payments Coalition unveiled a new TV commercial that takes aim at Visa’s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup while refusing to allow competition over billions of dollars in “swipe” fees that drive up prices for consumers.
READ MORE +Supermarket News: Retailers Press Hard for Credit Card Processing Reform
In the latest salvo in the battle between over transaction pricing between retailer organizations and payment card processors Visa and Mastercard, the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) is now asking lawmakers to pass legislation that would allow additional payment networks to process bank card transactions — a move the MPC hopes will create competition and potentially lower the pain of credit card swipe fees.
READ MORE +