The Hill: Merchants Want Competition Over Credit Card Fees, Not Price Controls
As Congress focuses on soaring inflation, banks and their surrogates have recently claimed lawmakers want to set a cap on the billions of dollars in credit card “swipe” fees Wall Street banks charge Main Street merchants each year. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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There Was No Stopping Credit Card Fee Hikes This Year
Merchants are incurring tens of millions of dollars in additional interchange, or "swipe," fee increases that the big credit card companies Mastercard and Visa are deploying.
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Visa Changes Rules for Gas Stations to Avoid $125 Pump Limit
Merchants have been decrying the firms’ plans to increase swipe fees. This week, the Merchants Payments Coalition trade group asked the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services to examine the fees. “It’s just especially troubling given the level of inflation right now,” Stephanie Martz, general counsel of the National Retail Federation and an executive committee member for the Merchant Payments Coalition, said in an interview. “We’re clawing our way to hang onto our slim margins as is. Given that these fees sometimes exceed what our margins are, we have to pass some of those rate raises onto consumers.”
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Merchants Call on Congress to Examine Swipe Fees
MPC sent a letter to the House Financial Services Committee, asking the committee to go beyond examining overdraft fees. “MPC applauds the committee’s action, but we believe a full examination of fees costing consumers billions should also include the billions of dollars big banks and card companies charge to process credit and debit card transactions,” wrote MPC in the letter. “The banking industry collects seven times as much in swipe fees as it does in overdraft fees and the impact on American families is far more widespread. Swipe fees are a hidden tax paid every day by nearly every American consumer, not just those who overdraw their accounts.”
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Merchants Ask House Committee to Add Swipe Fees to Examination of Bank Fees ‘Costing Consumers Billions’
The Merchants Payments Coalition today asked the House Financial Services Committee to go beyond overdraft fees as it looks into bank fees “costing consumers billions,” saying credit and debit card swipe fees should be considered as well.
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Merchants Advocate Says Visa, MC Swipe Fees Taking Eggs Out of Easter Baskets
“Banks and card companies will be grabbing eggs out of the Easter basket again this spring through the rising fees they charge to process credit card transactions,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Retail Federation Vice President for Government Relations, Banking and Financial Services Leon Buck said. “Not even the Easter Bunny is exempt from these fees."
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Swipe Fees Cost Each Consumer 2 Dozen Easter Eggs
Credit card swipe fees could cost the average consumer the equivalent of two dozen eggs this Easter and total hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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Credit Card Fees Swipe More Than Two Dozen Easter Eggs and Cost Consumers Millions on Easter Purchases This Year
Hidden “swipe” fees charged by big banks and credit card networks to process transactions could cost the average consumer the equivalent of two dozen eggs this Easter and total hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, the Merchants Payments Coalition said today.
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Ad Campaign Will Highlight Harm of Credit Card Swipe Fees
With fees set to rise in April, the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) announced an advertising campaign to educate Congress and other policymakers on high “swipe” fees that credit card networks and big banks charge merchants to process transactions and the impact the fees have on consumers, small businesses and the U.S. economy.
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CFPB's Chopra blasts potential card hikes
A spokesperson for Visa declined to comment, but a spokesperson at the merchant trade group FMI--The Food Industry Association weighed in. “Director Chopra is absolutely correct that these increases come at the worst possible time and that the U.S. payments system lacks competition," said the FMI spokesperson, Jennifer Hatcher, who is also an executive committee member for the Merchants Payments Coalition. "We appreciate the attention he is bringing to this growing issue and his willingness to address it head on."
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