U.S. Business Owners are Fighting Big Banks Over Interchange Fees
There is a fight brewing in Congress as businesses of all sizes lobby to get interchange fees capped in order to reduce the cost of processing electronic payments. While Visa and Mastercard have required U.S. business owners to invest heavily in new technology to accept EMV Chip Cards in order to reduce fraud, they have not indicated that they will voluntarily lower the interchange costs. The primary purpose of the interchange fees is to cover the cost of fraud which should go down sharply as a result of EMV. Therefore, to expect lower interchange fees is logical!
In today’s post I wanted to bring you up to speed by providing a link to a recent article. I believe every small business owner should read this in order to understand how businesses are fighting interchange fees in the U.S. and where the fight stands in Congress. Just a few short years ago the Durbin Amendment cut interchange costs on check card transactions by 40%. Now the time has come for business owners to join together in the fight against U.S. credit card interchange rates. They are 3 to 4 times higher in the U.S. than in the UK, Australia, and many other developed nations. This is one of the rare opportunities for small business owners to work together with large corporations like Walmart and Target in order to achieve a common goal – in this case, cost cutting.
EMV HEARING HELD IN U.S. HOUSE SMALL BUSINESS COMMITTEE
http://www.nacsonline.com/news/daily/pages/nd1008152.aspx#.VqoWhfkrKUk
