Digital Transactions: A New Merchant Groups Voices Opposition to a Bill Aimed at Credit Card Acceptance Costs
“Small businesses are hit the hardest by swipe fees because they pay the highest rates and have the fewest resources to do anything about it. We hear from them every day, they have come to repeated merchant fly-ins in Washington and have held countless meetings with lawmakers in their home states,” Doug Kantor, an executive committee member at the Merchants Payments Coalition and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, says by email. The MPC has lobbied hard for the CCCA. “Hundreds [of merchants] have signed letters to Congress calling for action, and their concerns have been voiced in scores of op-eds and letters to the editor across the country,” Kantor notes. “The new alliance is clearly a front for the card industry and is not the voice of American small businesses.”
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Rising Visa/Mastercard Fraud Rate Shows Need for Credit Card Competition Act to Protect Consumers
An increase in fraud rates on Visa and Mastercard’s networks shows the need to pass the Credit Card Competition Act to provide merchants with more secure options for routing consumer transactions, MPC said.
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MarketWatch: Could Congress Really 'Kill' Credit Card Rewards?
Supporters of the Credit Card Competition Act also argue that, even with cheaper payment networks, financial institutions will still use rewards to market to and compete for customers. “Rewards are determined by the bank that issues a card, not the network that processes the transaction,” said (MPC Executive Committee member) Stephanie Martz, chief administrative officer and general counsel for the National Retail Federation. She called airlines’ criticism of the bill “a scare tactic to mislead Congress.” “The amount of revenue banks would lose is a small fraction of total swipe fee collections, far from enough to put an end to rewards,” she said.
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Motley Fool: 'Reduce Excessive Credit Card Fees' -- Why Visa and Mastercard Investors Should Keep an Eye on Congress
(MPC Executive Committee member) Doug Kantor, chief counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, says the legislation could reduce swipe fees by $11 billion annually. Christine Pollack, vice president of government relations at the Food Industry Association (an also an MPC Executive Committee member), says hidden processing fees cost the average U.S. family $900 annually.
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Payments Journal: Is the Credit Card Competition Act Really Going to Destroy Rewards Programs?
The Merchants Payments Coalition counters that the legislation could lead to lower consumer prices without affecting credit card rewards programs. The group points out that the legislation projects to save $15 billion in swipe fees, which amounts to less than 10 percent of banks’ revenues from the fees.
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Furniture Today: Merchant Group Continues Urging Credit Card Competition Act
The Merchants Payments Coalition told Congress today that only this legislative proposal that would bar China’s credit card network, China UnionPay, from the U.S. payments market. “The two dominant payment networks in the United States – Visa and Mastercard – have welcomed China UnionPay into standard-setting for U.S. payments,” MPC said in a letter to all members of the House and Senate. “This is dangerous and wrong.”
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Politico Influence: Playing the China Card
In a letter to Scott and Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) this morning, the Merchants Payments Coalition sought to link Visa and Mastercard with the company, noting they allowed UnionPay to join the security standards group EMVCo a decade ago. “Today, there is no law preventing Visa, Mastercard or any of the banks for which Visa and Mastercard set credit card prices and rules from working with China UnionPay,” the coalition wrote. “There is, however, one piece of legislation that would create a legal restriction prohibiting China UnionPay from being enabled on any U.S. credit card — the Credit Card Competition Act.”
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Merchants Say Credit Card Competition Act is Needed to Keep China Out of U.S. Payments
The Credit Card Competition Act is the only legislative proposal that would bar China’s credit card network, China UnionPay, from the U.S. payments market, MPC told Congress in a letter.
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Hardware Retailing: Federal Reserve Proposes Lower Cap on Debit Card Swipe Fees
“Visa and Mastercard’s profit margins are more than 20 times what merchants make, and their megaprofits are still rising,” says MPC executive committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores general counsel Doug Kantor. “Businesses in competitive markets just don’t make those profit margins. With no competition or fairness, this is a broken market that only Congress can fix. It’s time to pass the Credit Card Competition Act so credit card companies will have to compete the same as small businesses.”
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Progressive Grocer: Grocery Industry Supports Fed's Bid to Reduce Debit Interchange Rate
“Banks have been charging more than five times their costs for debit card transactions, and the Fed is finally saying that’s too much,” said MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor. “This is a step in the right direction toward the real, competitive market that Congress wanted to see, but still leaves the fees too high. Merchants and the consumers who ultimately pay these fees have been overcharged for far too long, so we need to get this right.”
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