CNBC: Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Kroger customers pay over $90 million a year in cash-back fees, federal agency finds
The “vast majority” of retailers don’t charge for cash back, and therefore take a financial loss to offer this service to customers for free, said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition Executive Committee. “Banks have abandoned many of these communities and they’re gouging retailers just for taking people’s cards or giving people cash,” he said.
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Digital Transactions: The CFPB Reviews Cash Back at the Point of Sale Amid Concerns of Reduced Access to Cash
“The source of these issues is the banking industry charging retailers excessive fees to accept debit cards,” Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores, tells Digital Transactions News. The CFPB points out that banks have abandoned these towns, Kantor says. Retailers are serving these consumers and “getting hit with fees. That’s a real cost to those retailers,” he says. The focus should be on banks creating the problem rather than the retailers, who are caught in the middle, says Kantor, an executive committee member of the Merchants Payment Coalition.
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Center Square: With growing consumer debt, credit card companies make billions more off swipe fees
While many banks oppose the proposed legislation, a recent survey by the Merchants Payments Coalition found that a majority of Americans support the Credit Card Competition Act. "According to the survey, 55% of likely voters in this fall’s general election support the CCCA while only 7% oppose it, and 38% are unsure," a news release accompanying the survey says. "Supporters outnumber opponents by nearly 50 percentage points."
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Digital Transactions: Lenders Bring Suit Against Illinois’s Newly Enacted Interchange Law
“The state of Illinois is likely to prevail [in this case] because allegations about how hard it will be to implement the law and that it runs afoul of federal and state laws are mistaken,” says Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “Banks are upset with the law because it sends money in the other direction [to merchants].”
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Bloomberg Law: Bank, Credit Union Groups Sue Over Illinois Swipe Fee Law
States are allowed to protect their tax collectors from having to pay to collect revenue, as Illinois sought to do by banning interchange fees on retail taxes, said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores. “The state making sure that no longer happens is not preempted in any way” by federal banking laws, Kantor, a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition’s executive committee, said. The real point of the lawsuit is to force Illinois lawmakers, and those in other states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania considering similar legislation, to back off, Kantor said. “The lawsuit’s designed to do two things: to delay things so that they can try to scare people in Illinois and try to repeal the law,” he said. “And to scare people in other states as well.”
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Law360: Banking Groups Sue To Thwart New Ill. Swipe Fee Restrictions
Doug Kantor, executive committee member of the Merchant Payments Coalition, panned the trade groups' lawsuit on Thursday as fundamentally off-base. "Every major point the bankers make in their lawsuit is wrong," Kantor said in a statement. "Credit card companies already adjust their charges to merchants after a transaction takes place if it's to increase the amount they take. The banks' objection to the Illinois law isn't that it's hard to do, it's that the money would go in the opposite direction."
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American Banker: Bank groups challenge Illinois swipe fee law
"Credit card companies already adjust their charges to merchants after a transaction takes place if it's to increase the amount they take," said Doug Kantor from the Merchants Payments Coalition executive committee in a statement. "The banks' objection to the Illinois law isn't that it's hard to do, it's that the money would go in the opposite direction. And states certainly have the power to protect their tax collectors, like retailers, from being penalized for doing their jobs for the state. Banks can't use the 'preemption' excuse to undermine state tax collections. The court should summarily reject this case."
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Digital Transactions: Merchants Get Another Extension to File Claims in Their Class Action Against Visa and Mastercard
The Merchants Payments Coalition, which lobbies on behalf of sellers on interchange and related matters, welcomed news of the extension. “There are so many claimants, it’s understandable that [the claims administrator] is still finding potential claimants,” says Doug Kantor, an MPC executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
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MPC Hill Blast: Hotel Owners Know Competition Will Improve Credit Cards
Check out this article from Laura Lee Blake, President and CEO of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association whose 20,000 members own 60 percent of U.S. hotels.
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Digital Transactions: Processing Fees, Not Interchange, Are the Cost Merchants Should Combat, Some Say
But not all proponents for merchants in their battle against card-acceptance costs accept Cohen’s claims that rising processing fees can be more costly than interchange hikes. “Card-acceptance costs can be abusive in some cases, and complicated for merchants to understand, but that’s not the same systematic failure that we see with interchange,” argues Doug Kantor, an executive committee member for the Merchants Payments Coalition and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Merchants can switch to a lower-cost provider if processing fees become too high, but are stuck with the interchange costs set by the card networks, Kantor adds.
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