MPC Hill Blast: Visa, Mastercard Push Fraud Costs Onto Merchants -- Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve recently released new data on debit cards and the results are eye-opening. The report shows that Visa and Mastercard have continued to push more fraud costs onto merchants and have reduced the amounts that banks pick up.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: The '$760 Million Windfall'
As reported by the New York Times, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made a “$770 Million Windfall” in 2025.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: ‘Visa’s New Program Vexes Merchants’
Well, what do you know? It turns out that Visa has a “revamped system” that “has socked some merchants with higher costs.” The credit card companies keep telling Congress they don’t raise fees but in October Visa came out with a “Commercial Enhanced Data Program” that forced merchants into “a new interchange level” and made them “pay higher fees.”
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: Main Street Merchants and Consumer Groups: Reject the Sham Credit Card Settlement
Last week, the credit card industry announced its third attempt to finagle a litigation settlement that would cut off merchants’ rights to challenge the anticompetitive swipe fee system in court in exchange for largely meaningless “reforms.” The response from Main Street merchants and consumer groups has been clear: this is a bad deal.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: Asking for Strike 3
The credit card giants have tried multiple times to pull a fast one on Main Street by negotiating antitrust litigation settlements that allow them to continue their anticompetitive practices with legal immunity. According to the Wall Street Journal, they are at it again.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: Affordability
Affordability has been the talk of the town. You can read it here, here and here. The credit card industry is fighting against affordability as hard as it can.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: 54,000 More Jobs
That is the number of jobs that would be created in just the first year if we finally had competition among credit card networks. You can read it here.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: The Threat to Your Data? Visa Wins the Prize
Starting Oct. 17, Visa began hitting Main Street businesses that won’t give it “comprehensive” data on key transactions with extra swipe fees.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: Big-Bank Profits Rising Along With Swipe Fees
The big banks are raking in big profits — again.
READ MORE +
MPC Hill Blast: The ABCs of Big Bank Logic Are … Anything But Competition
Once again, big banks have shown they will go to any length to avoid competition. It’s not enough that they want to keep cartel-style price-fixing on credit card swipe fees without any competition. Now they want to prohibit consumers from getting any kind of rewards or interest from alternatives like stablecoins — just to avoid competition.
READ MORE +