Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Credit card companies don't work for free. Every time you use one, the store you're buying from is charged a "swipe fee" — and that charge will get passed down to you in higher prices.
Richard Durbin, the senator from Illinois who was the main proponent of those rules, has called the proposed settlement on credit card swipe fees, "gives Visa and MasterCard free rein to carry on their anti-competitive swipe-fee system with no real constraints and no legal accountability. This is not a settlement I would agree to.
Currently, swipe fees average about 2% per transaction and are only lowered by “at least 0.04 percentage points.” This means on a $100 sale, the $2 fee will be reduced to a maximum of $1.96.
At an average 2% to 4% of the purchase price, swipe fees account for up to 60 cents of the $15 or so it costs to buy a package of Oreos, a jar of peanut butter, one of jelly, and a loaf of bread.
Interchange fees or "debit card swipe fees" are paid to banks by acquirers for the privilege of accepting payment cards. Merchants and card-issuing banks have long fought over these fees. Prior to the Durbin amendment, card swipe fees were previously unregulated and averaged about 44 cents per transaction. [3]
An interchange fee is a fee paid between banks for the acceptance of card-based transactions. Usually for sales/services transactions it is a fee that a merchant's bank (the "acquiring bank") pays a customer's bank (the " issuing bank ").
She said swipe fees have become a particular problem since the pandemic, when the use of cash plummeted. Most people use cards now, which means the roughly 3% swipe fee she pays eats up a lot more ...
Swipe fees have doubled over the past decade and soared 25% in 2021 alone. Sens. Marshall and Durbin say the reason is lack of competition.