Inkl: The Quiet Rise of Stablecoin: Are You Ready to Shop and Bank Differently?
Last year, retailers and e-commerce companies paid a record $187.2 billion in swipe fees for credit and debit cards. That is according to a Merchants Payment Coalition report. “With no competition to hold them in check, price-fixed swipe fees rise every year and shot up again last year,” said MPC Executive Committee member Christine Pollack. She is also vice president of government relations at FMI – The Food Industry Association.
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Digital Transactions: Stablecoins’ Steady Rise
“Our view is we should have more innovation in payments,” says Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores and an executive committee member of the Merchants Payments Coalition. But Kantor sees a dark side, as well. “Visa and Mastercard are also engaged in looking at stablecoins,” he notes. “If it’s just a replication of their dominance [in payments], that’s not helpful.”
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Digital Transactions: The States’ Battle to Regulate Interchange
“The rise in swipe fees since 2020 has been astronomical, and those are out-the-door dollars for merchants,” says Doug Kantor, a Merchants Payment Coalition executive committee member and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “There is a measure of desperation among merchants over how high and fast fees are rising,” Kantor says. The average card swipe fee is 2.35% for Mastercard and Visa-branded credit cards, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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Fox News: Bartenders spill the beans on Gen Z's 'annoying' drink-by-drink payment habit
Card payments can not only slow down bartenders on a busy night, they can also be costly to a bar owner's bottom line. Credit card fees, which range from, on average, 2% to 4% of the transaction, are assessed with every swipe, according to Doug Kantor with the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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MPC Hill Blast: Credit Card Companies Charge Everyone More
Credit card swipe fees keep growing out of control. They hit a record $187 billion in 2024. The credit card industry tries every contortion it can to find a way this helps consumers, but they strike out every time. The latest swing and miss was highlighted by the Wall Street Journal.
READ MORE +MPC Hill Blast: Even Banks Know Competition is Better – Except When it Comes to Credit Cards
This article on payments demonstrates the depths of hypocrisy of the credit card industry in its attempts to push giant swipe fees ever higher. The article reports on how the majority of banks in the nation use multiple payment options (or “rails”) so that they have different paths to settle real-time payments. This makes sense. It provides a back-up, it gives them different providers to work with, and it keeps those providers on their toes to make sure they are keeping up and serving the financial institutions as well as or better than the other option. This is exactly the type of multi-option, competitive framework that Main Street businesses and consumers are asking for with the Credit Card Competition Act. And those same banks that use precisely that strategy everyday on real-time payments are fighting it on credit cards as they (and Visa and Mastercard) work to prevent competition from keeping swipe fees in check.
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Newsday: GENIUS Act could bring stablecoin payments to Long Island businesses and consumers
The Merchants Payments Coalition, a national advocacy group, believes the GENIUS Act "creates the potential” to disrupt the credit card industry, said Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, although the group remains concerned that “by itself, it’s not enough.” More widespread adoption of stablecoins will “give business owners more options and allow them to make payments more convenient and cheaper for the customers,” he said, reducing the “inflationary pressure credit card payments have on prices today. It would also allow people to use their phones and other technology to pay for goods and services, rather than carrying around cash or cards, he said.
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PYMNTS: Credit Card Competition Act Not Part of GENIUS Bill, But Swipe Fee Debate Endures
The CCCA has been endorsed by the Merchant Payment Coalition (MPC), the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and other retail groups. The NACS and the MPC said in a statement that the fees paid by merchants to the payment networks were $187.2 billion last year, and represented merchants’ highest operating cost, after wages paid to employees. They also said in that statement that they would continue advocating for the CCCA’s passage.
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CardRates.com: GENIUS Act Clears Senate Without Credit Card Competition or Rate Cap Amendments
Supporters of the amendment are not throwing in the towel. The card networks’ interchange fees decrease the thin profit margins at the retail level and add to the costs paid by the end consumers, says the National Association of Convenience Stores and the Merchants Payments Coalition.
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Payments Dive: Credit card bill crusade persists
“The banks have been so overly aggressive in advertising against him in Kansas, and doing some other things, that they made it a top priority for him,” NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor said of Marshall in an interview last week. “They made him angry.” Spokespeople for Durbin and Marshall have declined to comment, but the Merchants Payments Coalition said the latest CCCA campaign brought a “surge of support.”
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