NRF supports bill to curb credit card fees

WASHINGTON The Credit Card Fair Fee Act was introduced today by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the National Retail Federation reported. According to NRF, the bill is Congress' first attempt to address credit card interchange fees.

NRF said it supported the legislation that would address hidden MasterCard and Visa fees that cost merchants and their customers more than $40 billion a year.

“This legislation would use the nation’s antitrust laws to rein in the greed of the credit card companies,” NRF senior vp Mallory Duncan said. “With the rapidly increasing use of plastic, credit card companies and their banks are seeing a windfall that is costing U.S. consumers tens of billions of dollars each year. These are fees that most consumers don’t even know they’re paying because Visa, MasterCard have tried to keep them secret. The introduction of this legislation marks the beginning of the end of credit card company rip-offs.” 

Under the proposed legislation, retailers would be allowed to negotiate with the credit card companies to create more reasonable fees.

According to NRF, Visa and MasterCard banks charge merchants an average interchange fee of close to 2%, and have collected an estimated $42 billion in interchange fees in 2007, an increase of 17% over the previous year and 150% since 2001.