Nearly 1,700 Merchants From Small to Large Ask Congress to Support Bipartisan Credit Card Competition Legislation
More than 200 merchant trade associations and close to 1,700 companies ranging from Main Street small businesses to national chains called on Congress to support legislation sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin and Roger Marshall that would finally bring badly needed competition to the credit card market.
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Kansas Merchants Meet with Marshall on Need for Competition Over Credit Card 'Swipe' Fees
Merchants from across Kansas met with Senator Roger Marshall to emphasize how lack of competition over credit card processing drives up prices paid by consumers and thanked him for introducing the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act.
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Wall Street Journal: Why Using Your Credit Card is Getting More Expensive
The cost to process a credit card transaction has gone up and many businesses are passing that on to the consumer. WSJ explains the hidden fees behind using your card, and what Congress is trying to do about them.
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The Economist: Can the Visa-Mastercard Duopoly Be Broken?
The system of interchange -- whereby banks and credit card companies charge merchants for collecting payments -- is loathed by many retailers. Merchants hand over some $138 billion in fees each year, according to the National Retail Federation.
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Supermarket News: FMI, NGA Endorse Credit Card Competition Act
Both FMI and NGA are members of the Merchants Payments Coalition, which for nearly two decades has fought for swipe fee reform, including the passage in 2010 of the Durbin Amendment, a landmark law that prevents financial institutions from price-gouging debit interchange fees and led to increased competition and transparency in the debit marketplace.
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Payments Dive: Let the Credit Card Battle Begin
While trade groups representing the card networks and their financial institution partners, like the Electronic Payments Coalition, are already vocally attacking the bill, large merchant groups, such as the National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition, are predictably egging the legislation on.
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Retail Customer Experience: Swipe Fees Will Add $2.5B to Back-to-School Spending
The swipe fees banks charge retailers to process credit cards will add an estimated $2.5 billion to the cost of everything, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition. That amounts to almost $20 in swipe fees for the average family, according to a press release from the coalition, or the price of a lunch box. "Swipe fees are a hidden tax on almost everything Americans buy regardless of whether they pay with cards or cash," MPC executive committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said in the release.
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American Banker: Would a Proposed Credit Card Law Be as Costly as Credit Unions Claim?
Despite pushback from smaller financial institutions, experts with the National Association of Convenience Stores and the Merchants Payments Coalition are emphasizing the bill's focus on the larger organizations and the possible benefits for store owners. Doug Kantor, general counsel for the convenience store group and a member of the payments coalition, explained that costs can be lowered by promoting competition among card networks and larger financial institutions. "Our view is still that a competitive market is better for everyone, where smaller institutions like credit unions are already disadvantaged in the marketplace. … I think [credit unions] might welcome a more competitive marketplace that would potentially give them a better opportunity to compete when larger issuers would have requirements that they wouldn't have," Kantor said.
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Payments Compliance: Durbin 2 -- This Time It's Credit Cards
Merchants and some experts are optimistic that the bill could eventually make credit card fees more affordable. “If one network lowers its swipe fees, merchants will favour that network and others will do the same in order to compete,” said Doug Kantor, executive committee member of the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) and general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores. “Routing choice means market forces will govern swipe fees and the market will eventually settle on rates that are fair to merchants, banks, card networks and consumers alike,” Kantor told VIXIO.
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Payments Dive: Legislation Aimed at Visa, Mastercard Lands
The bill is already touching off a continuation of the battle that has long pitted retailers and merchants on one side against the card networks and the bank issuers on the other. While supporters of the bill, such as the Merchant Payments Coalition, said it’s likely to attract bi-partisan support, given its reliance on competition to address high fees, long-time detractors of such moves, including the Electronic Payments Coalition, have already expressed concerns about the bill and appear unlikely to back it.
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