For Immediate Release Contact: Rachel Wolf
February 2, 2011 (202) 331-2120
Washington, DC – Main Street businesses of all sizes presented a unified front in their support of swipe fee reforms by sending a letter to the Federal Reserve signed by more than 1,500 companies and associations. This letter builds on a previous letter of support that was sent to the Hill and signed by a diverse group of over 200 national and state trade associations – including small businesses, retailers, drug stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, tavern owners, bookstores, theatre owners, and many others.
“The big banks have embarked on a multi-million dollar misinformation campaign to make sure that this Main Street stimulus is postponed and abandoned,” said Jennifer Hatcher, Vice President of Government Relations at the Food Marketing Institute. “The American business community isn’t content to sit on the sidelines and watch the banking and credit card giants continue to injure retailers, consumers and our economy as a whole with their anti-competitive behavior. We’re making our voices heard and fighting to ensure that swipe fee reforms are implemented this summer, as directed by the law.”
Merchants across the country have been outspoken about their support for the debit interchange swipe fee and routing reforms that will bring much needed relief to Main Street business and consumers from excessive and unpredictable fees. In recent weeks, Main Street retailers—from 7-Eleven franchisees to CEOs—have been reaching out with a new vigor to Members of Congress and the Federal Reserve.
“As a small business owner, it is hard to see how anyone would want to side with the big banks and their lobbyists over Main Street retailers and our customers,” said Jeff Miller, President of Miller Mart Convenience Stores and Chairman of the National Association of Convenience Stores. “It’s pretty shocking that anyone would want to raise fees and ban customer discounts. Luckily, we have a committed group of small business owners who are going to keep fighting until we see these important reforms put into practice in our stores.”
Swipe fee reforms, which were included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, will limit debit card swipe fees to the transactional costs—prohibiting banks from subsidizing junk mailings and executive bonuses with the fees. The legislation applies only to banks with more than $10 billion in assets, which exempts all but roughly 100 financial institutions from the swipe fee provisions. Visa has already announced that it plans to introduce a two-tier interchange system in order to process small and community banks at their unregulated interchange rate.
Analysts have said that swipe fee reforms will in fact benefit small and community banks that are not regulated by the law and will give them an opportunity to gain a larger market share.
Click here for the full letter.
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The Merchants Payments Coalition is a group of convenience stores, retailers, and small business owners whose member associations collectively represent approximately 2.7 million stores with 50 million employees.