Coalition Hails Lawmakers for Opposing New Credit Card Fee Hikes
The retail-oriented Merchants Payments Coalition hailed a letter Friday from bipartisan members of the House and Senate urging Mastercard and Visa to withdraw credit card swipe fee increases set to take effect this month. “This is about the card industry…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
continuing to profit on the backs of Main Street merchants and hard-working American families at a time when they can least afford it,” said Anna Ready Blom, National Association of Convenience Stores director-government relations and an MPC executive committee member, The increases would drive up prices for consumers already enduring high inflation, wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Roger Marshall R-Kan.; and Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas. Visa and Mastercard charged merchants $77.48 billion in credit card fees and $28.06 billion in debit card fees last year, mostly in interchange fees deducted from transaction amounts for credit and debit card purchases “and ultimately borne by consumers” in higher goods and services prices, they said. If the credit card companies operated in a market environment “with real competition, we would not be troubled by your planned fee increases,” they said. The current electronic payment system is a “clear duopoly that your companies dominate, and you impose fees and rules that merchants, consumers, and small banks have no real choice but to accept,” they said. Mastercard and Visa didn't comment Monday.