Retail Group make case for swipe fee reform

The National Retail Federation brought added attention to its stance on debit card swipe fee reform at a Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.



According to the NRF, reform has saved merchants and consumers more than $40 billion -- which is why the association is asking that it be protected.



“Debit card reform has been a remarkable success,” NRF Senior Vice president and general counsel Mallory Duncan said. “It has saved retailers and their customers billions of dollars and it has brought the beginnings of transparency and competition to a market where swipe fees were price-fixed and all banks linked arms to charge the same high fees. If reform is repealed, the big banks will go back to those practices, and nothing will stop them from setting these fees as high as they like and driving up prices paid by consumers in the process.”



“The hearing was held by the House Financial Services Committee on the Financial Choice Act, legislation sponsored by Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, that would repeal debit swipe fee reform as part of a larger rollback of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.



“This has been settled law for the better part of a decade,” Duncan said. “We should be looking at the future of payments rather than trying to re-legislate this important consumer protection and vital step forward for fair market competition.”



According to the NRF, retailers were not invited to testify at the hearing -- so the association (and other retail groups) organized a fly-in to lobby against the repeal, featuring dozens of retailers.



The NRF also submitted a statement for the record and is running digital ads and circulating petitions addressing consumer benefits, competition and retailers’ concerns.