Capitol Forum: White House and Senate Headed Towards Swipe Fee Showdown
"If we don't have clarity from the 7th Circuit and July 1st hits, then there's a question for the enforcement authorities in Illinois. Do they take action? Obviously, whoever they take action against would challenge it," said Doug Kantor, vice president and general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores (and MPC Executive Committee member). "Hopefully, the 7th Circuit will give everybody clarity. That would be great."
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Law360: OCC Rules Spur 7th Circ. Remand In Ill. Swipe-Fee Fight
A top official with the Merchants Payments Coalition said his organization is "pleased" Judge Kendall will now “have another chance to tell the OCC they are wrong.” "The OCC's approach of writing a regulation to overturn this law is just a desperate move to try to avoid the courts deciding this issue and it's not going to work," Doug Kantor, the coalition's executive committee member, said. "They have gone to extreme lengths to try to avoid having the court decide this in the normal course of business. Unfortunately, the OCC sees itself as an advocate for the banks rather than a regulator charged with protecting consumers, and that's a problem."
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American Banker: Bitcoin's Overton window of opportunity is closing
Colorado would join Illinois in taking this stand against swipe fees on taxes. And the groups that are supporting this movement don't seem content with just two noncontiguous states. "Other states should take notice," said Doug Kantor, who is on the executive committee of the Merchants Payments Coalition and is general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
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CardRates.com: Home > Credit Card News Interchange Battle Intensifies as OCC Targets Illinois Law
“The OCC is taking advocating for big Wall Street banks to a whole new level,” Doug Kantor, National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel and Executive Committee Member of the Merchants Payments Coalition, told Payments Dive. “The court clearly ruled that Illinois can regulate credit card swipe fees.”
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Chain Drug Review: Wall Street swipes Mother’s Day carnations with almost $900 million in credit card fees
"Credit card swipe fees are taking carnations right out of every mom’s bouquet this year,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “When these fees inflate the cost of flowers, or a special brunch for Mom, Americans’ dollars don’t go as far as they should. Credit card companies make life less affordable every day for Mom — and the rest of the family. Do Wall Street banks and credit card companies even care that it’s Mother’s Day?"
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Payments Dive: How the Visa-Mastercard card fee case may end
Doug Kantor, general counsel for NACS, the convenience stores’ trade group (and MPC Executive Committee member), said in an interview April 9 that “the settlement does absolutely nothing to require or incentivize banks to compete with each other, which is the central problem in all of this.”
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Credit Union Daily: Rising Gas Prices Give Merchants Group Fuel to Highlight Swipe Fees
“Big banks and card networks are seeing a windfall as fuel prices rise,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said in a statement. “It doesn’t cost them any more to process gas purchases at $4 a gallon than it did at $2, but they are collecting more on every gallon and profiteering on the backs of American motorists. Swipe fees drive up the price of gas in the family car but do the same for the diesel that fuels tractor-trailers, ultimately adding to the price of every product delivered over our nation’s highways. This is part of the swipe fee ripoff condemned by President Trump, and it’s time for Congress to follow his lead by bringing competition to these price-fixed fees.”
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Bloomberg: Merchants Use Iran War Gas Spike to Lobby for Curbing Swipe Fees
“Big banks and card networks are seeing a windfall as fuel prices rise,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and an executive committee member of the merchants’ coalition, in a statement shared first with Bloomberg Government. ... “This is part of the swipe fee ripoff condemned by President Trump, and it’s time for Congress to follow his lead by bringing competition to these price-fixed fees,” Kantor said.
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Gifts and Decorative Accessories: Big Banks See Profit Surge from Credit Card Swipe Fees as Fuel Prices Rise
“Big banks and card networks are seeing a windfall as fuel prices rise,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “It doesn’t cost them any more to process gas purchases at $4 a gallon than it did at $2, but they are collecting more on every gallon and profiteering on the backs of American motorists. Swipe fees drive up the price of gas in the family car, but do the same for the diesel that fuels tractor-trailers, ultimately adding to the price of every product delivered over our nation’s highways. This is part of the swipe fee ripoff condemned by President Trump, and it’s time for Congress to follow his lead by bringing competition to these price-fixed fees.”
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Payments Dive: OCC plans to preempt Illinois interchange law
National retail organizations contended the OCC move was wrongheaded. “The OCC is taking advocating for big Wall Street banks to a whole new level,” National Association of Convenience Stores general counsel, Doug Kantor, said by email. “The Court clearly ruled that Illinois can regulate credit card swipe fees.” “The OCC should recognize that the Illinois law is a good thing that will help people save on everything from gas to groceries,” added Kantor, who is also an executive committee member of the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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