Banking, credit card cartel so intoxicated by greed that their advocacy lobbyists just issued this…

Electronic Payments Coalition, the group funded by Visa Inc.,  MasterCard Worldwide and the major banks and credit card issuers (payment card networks and financial services companies) just issued this press release. Click here.

We disagree with it, including this key point:  The problem with cash discounts is that they don’t allow for different prices depending on the type of payment card used.  There are about one-hundred separate merchant interchange fees and it is nearly impossible to know what the cost is for each transaction. In other words, they prevent Visa and MasterCard from competing over the cost of acceptance. The same principle applies to the honor-all-cards rules, which prevent merchants from exercising a preference for lower-cost cards, thereby preventing competitive forces from placing downward pressure on interchange fees. Not to mention the condescending, patronizing attitude that credit card companies know better than merchants how to treat a merchant’s customers.

 

—————-

PRNewswire release

Merchants Can Already Discount for Cash, But Don’t – So What Would H.R. 2382 Really Do?

Electronic Payments Coalition Unveils the Truth About Rep. Peter Welch’s Interchange Bill

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ — In advance of the October 8th hearing in the House Financial Services Committee on H.R. 2382, “The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act,” sponsored by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), the Electronic Payments Coalition has issued the following statement:

“H.R. 2382 is one of the most egregious assaults on consumer protection that this country has seen in some time. Disguised as a measure to allow for cash discounts – something that is already allowed by federal law and by all card network contracts – the bill would instead open up the door for bait-and-switch advertising schemes, charging additional checkout fees at the register, and discrimination against certain card holders. The bill is chock full of provisions that mean one thing: consumers will pay more so merchants can pay less. Bottom line – retailers don’t want to pay their fair share for a service that brings them more sales and higher profits – and want their customers to pick up the tab instead.”

The Electronic Payments Coalition released today a document detailing the anti-consumer protection measures detailed in H.R. 2382. This document follows this statement.

Rep. Peter Welch’s H.R. 2382 – “The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act” – would…

Leave consumers vulnerable and unprotected against deceptive, bait-and-switch advertising.

Rep. Welch’s legislation would eliminate important consumer protections on how merchants are allowed to advertise their prices – restrictions that are in place expressly to protect consumers. This would allow retailers to promise one low price, then charge more – potentially a lot more – when the customer reaches the cash register. Consumers would be left unprotected, forced to pay the demanded price regardless of what was advertised – and retailers would profit unjustly from their dishonest schemes.

Leave consumers stranded at the checkout counter.

Imagine getting to the front of a long line at the grocery store, only to discover that the store doesn’t accept your alma mater’s credit card. Or they won’t accept the card that donates a few cents of every purchase to your favorite charity. This legislation allows merchants to pick and choose which cards they will accept – and which cards they won’t – with no advance warning to their customers.

Dramatically reduce – or eliminate – the card rewards programs that are used by 80% of American households.

H.R. 2382 would prohibit a slightly higher interchange rate for rewards cards – cards that are traditionally used by customers who are proven to spend more when they shop, in turn providing greater value to merchants. Unfortunately, merchants don’t want to pay for this benefit – and the result would be far fewer rewards for American consumers who value such programs. In fact, similar regulation in Australia has resulted in a 23% reduction in the value of rewards programs for consumers.”

Force businesses to disclose highly confidential financial information to the public and to their competitors.

H.R. 2382 would require every contract, rate agreement, and rule on merchant discount rates to be submitted to the Federal Reserve, which would then be responsible for publishing every bit of it. This would involve literally millions of documents, most containing highly sensitive financial information. The chaos that would result from the sheer volume of contracts – not to mention the compromised financial information – would be incredibly harmful to retailers and to financial institutions.

Falsely characterize interchange as a consumer fee, by requiring that it be disclosed on consumer statements.

It’s simple: consumers don’t pay for the cost of card acceptance. It’s a cost of doing business for merchants that accept cards. Despite this clear distinction, H.R. 2382 would force card issuers to print the amount of interchange, as well as the total amount various merchants paid for each charge – an amount that varies depending on what each merchant negotiated – on consumer’s credit or debit card statements. This is nonsensical, unrealistic, and would ultimately confuse consumers and the financial decisions they make.

About Electronic Payments Coalition

The Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC) includes credit unions, banks, and payment card networks that move electronic payments quickly and securely between millions of merchants and millions of consumers across the globe. EPC’s goal is to protect the value, innovation, convenience and competition in today’s growing electronic payments system. EPC educates policymakers, consumers, and the media on the system’s role economic growth, and the importance of protecting consumer choice and stability for the continued growth of global commerce. http://electronicpaymentscoalition.org/

SOURCE Electronic Payments Coalition

MasterCard: Legislation Would Let Merchants Keep the Benefits of Card Acceptance But Make Consumers Pay the Price

[source: MasterCard Worldwide press release, June 4]

Purchase, NY, June 04, 2009 – MasterCard said today that legislation introduced today by U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), by exempting merchants from antitrust laws, would take away the fundamental protections that these laws provide consumers. This would result in less credit availability, along with higher prices and reduced benefits when Americans choose to use their credit or debit cards. Antitrust laws are designed to protect competition and consumers, but this bill would have the opposite effect.

Conyers’ legislation, H.R. 2695, would give merchants a special exemption from antitrust laws enabling them to engage in anticompetitive and collusive behavior when establishing the fees and terms applicable to accepting payment cards. The bill is part of an organized merchant campaign to shift their card acceptance costs to consumers, and does not require merchants to pass on any savings to consumers if they succeed in lowering these fees.

When similar legislation was considered last Congress, it stirred considerable controversy and was only narrowly approved by a deeply divided Judiciary Committee. In addition, a wide array of organizations from non-profits to community banks and credit unions to minority small businesses voiced their opposition. The Department of Justice also expressed concern about the bill indicating that its antitrust exemptions “would appear to be the type of naked collusion that the antitrust laws condemn as per se unlawful because such conduct lacks plausible benefits to competition.”

Experience demonstrates that consumers lose when merchants no longer pay their fair share for the valuable benefits they receive from accepting payment cards. This is precisely what happened in Australia when the government reduced interchange fees. Although it cut costs for merchants, many Australian consumers now pay more for their payment cards and receive less in return as a result of the government’s intervention. Furthermore, there is no evidence that merchants reduced prices for consumers as a result of the government’s intervention.

Both merchants and consumers benefit from the ability to use and accept electronic payments, and in today’s free market system, each pays a share of the cost of the service. The benefits and the cost of card payment services are now shared between merchants and consumers but the merchants behind the Conyers bill seek to retain the benefits while shifting the costs to consumers.

Finally, MasterCard noted that any serious discussion of these issues should wait for the results of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study ordered by Congress as part of the Credit CARD Act. Consumers stand to be severely damaged by government intervention and the findings of the GAO study may help avoid consumer harm that inevitably flows when merchants no longer pay their fair share for the benefits they receive.

How Visa and MasterCard Discriminate Against Millions of Merchants

As MasterCard provides an interchange fee limit of $50.00 for service station gasoline fill ups, the question is whether this is just for debit cards, or also for credit card transactions? Then, with many card limits of about $75.00, are motorist forced to resubmit their card to top off their tank and thus ring up even greater interchange fees? As for Visa, will they also be imposing an interchange fee limit on credit cards too?

While pleased to see that Visa and MasterCard are reacting to merchant revolts against the two giant card associations, it was especially consoling to notice that the Visa debit card limit was announced just hours after our planned rally against them. Nice timing, Visa!

The problem is that restructuring only a few interchange fees provokes even more questions. There are millions of retailers coerced to pay these supra competitive fees, yet the only relief now are for service stations, and for only gasoline purchases. What about our ScanMyPhotos.com and the millions of other retailers? We all want relief and if Visa and MasterCard can limit fees at the pumps, why not everywhere? The answer to this rhetorical question is that they are giant cartels that have a monology and can do whatever they want…. until now.

The interchange fee limits at the pumps do not address the issues of other skyrocketing inflationary costs on other products and services.

 

Assault on Visa and MasterCard’s Merchant Fees Escalates in the WSJ

The magnifying attention to what we assert is illegal price-fixing by Visa, MasterCard and its member banks is gaining concentrated global attention.

After a recent Wall Street Journal commentary (Credit-Card Wars,” Review & Outlook, March 29) that was favorable to one of the publication’s largest advertising categories – financial services – we anticipated a monstrously loud examination from retailers and the public. Today it happened.

There were four letters published in Thursday’s WSJ “Letters to the Editor” section.  Our guess is that many more did not make the cut either, including ours (see below).  Then again, we already had one published on Jan 10th. See link.  For an overview of today’s response and our letters, see below.

• Merchants Must Submit To MasterCard’s Power
  WSJ, January 10, 2008; Page A13

  The European Union has found, again, that interchange fees charged by MasterCard to merchants are fixed at anticompetitive levels. Instead of recognizing that the nearly $40 billion annual hidden tax on merchants and consumers is based on illegal price-fixing, Joshua Peirez of MasterCard Worldwide hauls out the usual replies (“EU Killing of Interchange Fees Won’t Help Customers,” Letters, Dec. 28).

  The fact is that consumers, the marketplace and technology, not interchange fees, are what force innovations within the electronic-payment network. The actual cost of an electronic payment is a tiny fraction of the total fees collected, yet Mr. Peirez suggests that “interchange fees are necessary to fairly share the cost of an electronic payment system.”

  Merchants are unable to pay a fair price for using MasterCard’s (and Visa’s) payment network; we are all forced to submit to their market power and their member banks’ ability to collectively fix interchange fees at noncompetitive levels. MasterCard’s long history of anticompetitive price-fixing corrupts its understanding of Economics 101, where the marketplace controls competition, not a board of directors who stand accused of illegal price-fixing.

  Mitch Goldstone
  President and Chief Executive
  ScanMyPhotos.com
  Irvine, Calif.

  (Mr. Goldstone is the lead plaintiff in merchant-interchange litigation against Visa, MasterCard and leading member banks.)
  

“Are Credit-Card Fees Fair, to Whom, and How Best to Set Them?”  LETTERS/EXCERPT:

• Interchange fees in the U.S. are far higher than those in other western countries. Unfortunately, a market solution is not currently possible because of the credit-card network rules that insulate interchange fees from market discipline. Some credit cards (those with lots of rewards points) cost merchants twice as much as others.

  In a normal, free market, we would expect to see these cards priced differently. Credit-card networks, however, forbid merchants to charge more for credit cards than for other, cheaper payment methods, to charge different prices for different card brands or cards within a brand, to accept only certain cards within a brand, or to accept cards only at certain locations and for certain transactions.

  Innovation and competition cannot push down interchange rates until the card networks’ artificial constraints on the market are banned.

  Adam J. Levitin
  Associate Professor of Law
  Georgetown University Law Center
  Washington
  ————————————————-

• Your editorial comes to the conclusion that soaring Visa and MasterCard “interchange” fees that cost merchants and consumers more than $35 billion each year are no big deal because “retailers have options to avoid the fees.”

  You say merchants can offer a cash discount. In fact, Visa and MasterCard rules make it almost impossible for anyone but gas stations to post both cash and credit prices. And even if they didn’t, the card companies’ systems don’t tell the merchant how much interchange is being charged at the time of purchase, making it impossible to calculate how much of a discount to offer.

  You also claim that large chains negotiate lower fees. There are lower-rate categories for a few large merchants based on dollar volume, but Visa and MasterCard refuse to negotiate these rates and impose them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis just as they do for smaller merchants.

  Finally, with Visa and MasterCard controlling more than 80% of the market, the question of competition isn’t about other cards or PayPal. The issue is that the thousands of banks issuing Visa and MasterCard cards won’t compete to lower interchange rates. Instead, they have historically come together and agreed to all charge the same high fee for each specific type of card. As we have testified before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, that is a blatant violation of federal antitrust law.

  Visa/MasterCard rules effectively require that billions of dollars in interchange costs be passed along to consumers — a hidden credit-card fee of more than $350 a year — yet most families don’t even realize their pockets are being picked. During the shaky financial times you note, what better way to help the economy than to bring the greed of the card companies under control?

  Tracy Mullin
  President and CEO
  National Retail Federation
  Washington
  ——————————————–

• One important point to merchants that was not developed in the article: It is not the “basic” set of fees for accepting charge cards that many of us take issue with. What aggravates so many merchants and service providers is the fee surcharges that are unilaterally imposed upon merchants for accepting certain types of credit cards most often associated with the multitude of rewards programs so widely advertised.

  How do the likes of Capital One so generously offer the merchandise, discounts, and cash back without losing money? They attach a surcharge to these cards over and above what the merchant expects to pay for accepting these credit cards. The merchant must pay the extra fee. Merchants have no control over the surcharge amount which they are charged, so the card issuers can be ever more generous to the card holder at the expense of the merchant.

  Bill Gardella, Jr.
  Norwalk, Conn.
  ——————————————-

• Credit-card fees are an ever growing expense for all retailers. Credit-card fraud is rampant. Consumers are now starting to default on their credit-card debt the same way they’ve defaulted on mortgages. Your argument that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, doesn’t hold here. Would you have said the same thing about subprime mortgages two years ago? Government should be monitoring this ever expensive and important industry.

  Stuart Burke
  Hopkinton, Mass.

Our prevous letter to the WSJ didn’t make the cut, but, here’s a copy in response to a WSJ article.

Dear Editor (drafted, Feb 29), There’s more to Eric Felten’s “the burden of gratuitous gratuities” (Weekend Journal, Feb 29) than just that flaunty tipping jar at Starbucks.  Most consumers don’t know that when they use a credit or debit card to fund their daily fix of java, it adds to a very hefty tip for Visa, MasterCard and its thousands of member banks that make up their cartel.  As Starbucks attunes away from its financial miscues, a giant cost savings would be to return to cash to save consumers from the merchant interchange fees.  Each year, electronic payment interchange fees – including those micro-payments of a buck or two bestow nearly $40 billion in cash to the banks.  These rich fees were once cost-based and designed for clearing those manual credit card imprinter carbon copy transactions on the Visa and MasterCard network.  Today, the lack of competition (Visa and MasterCard own nearly 80% of the market) and the unbridled collusion forces the question: why are these obsolete fees still in force? 

Technology and innovations enable instant, automated and efficient settlements that no longer warrant these tips to the banks

Mitch Goldstone
Co-Editor – WayTooHigh.com – The Credit Card Interchange Report Excerpts from The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2008

“MasterCard Statement on the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008” (via MasterCard press release)

[Click here to view MasterCard Worldwide press release.  Reprinted in its entirety].

Purchase, NY, March 06, 2008 – The electronic payments system benefits merchants and consumers because it is a highly efficient and secure way to increase sales and consumer satisfaction. The system was developed in the highly competitive marketplace of merchants, banks, payment networks and consumers. This legislation is an attempt by merchants and the Merchants Payments Coalition to put in place price controls, which will harm competition and the card products and services offered to consumers.

MasterCard believes there is no need for government intervention, and that it would be inappropriate for the U.S. government to set prices and negotiate the terms of contracts for private commercial entities. Such policy decisions in the past have proven to be unworkable, unpopular and detrimental to the free market economy. There is no evidence that demonstrates that such price controls will result in savings passed along to consumers. To the contrary, we believe such moves negatively impact consumer choice.

We will continue to work with our customers and other industry organizations, like the Electronic Payments Coalition, American Bankers Association, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, Independent Community Bankers of America, and the American Financial Services Association, to help members of Congress enhance their understanding of how interchange brings benefits to millions of consumers and merchants around the world.

For more information on Interchange, go to: http://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/ourcompany/interchange.html

“MasterCard Files Appeal of European Commission Decision” (via MasterCard press release)

[Source: MasterCard Worldwide press release]

MasterCard seeks to annul decision which would harm consumers and undermine European competitiveness and innovation

    WATERLOO, Belgium, March 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — MasterCard Europe has applied to the European Court of First Instance to annul the European Commission’s decision on MasterCard Europe’s cross-border interchange fees, and said it believes it has strong grounds for its request. The December 19, 2007 decision requires the company, among other things, to repeal its intra- EEA fallback interchange fees by June 21st.

    The company reaffirmed its intention to comply with the Commission’s Order while the appeal proceeds, as well as its commitment to ensuring that its payments services remain competitive and continue to benefit its customers as well as the millions of European cardholders and merchants who rely on MasterCard and Maestro cards.

    MasterCard said its concerns with the decision focus on:

• The Commission’s failure to recognize that four-party payment systems cannot operate without default settlement terms between banks that issue cards to consumers and those that acquire transactions for merchants, which requires the setting of an interchange fee;
• The Commission’s refusal to recognize the efficiencies that four-party payment systems create and the fairness of MasterCard’s interchange fees; and
• The Commission’s inaccurate conclusion that, despite MasterCard’s May 2006 IPO, MasterCard and its customers continue to be “an association of undertakings”, and its mischaracterization of MasterCard’s interchange fees as decisions of an association that restrict competition under EC Treaty rules. 

“MasterCard firmly believes that market forces, not regulation, should drive key decisions such as the setting of interchange fees and retailers’ choices over which forms of payment to accept. If left unchallenged, and especially if followed by national regulators, the Commission’s decision would not only be bad news for consumers but a blow to the European payments industry,” commented Javier Perez, President of MasterCard Europe.   Perez continued: “From a business point of view, a payment system that does not allow for efficient recovery of costs is not sustainable in the long term, nor is it desirable because it limits the scope for innovation in payment services offered to consumers.   “The Single Euro(pean) Payments Area (SEPA) for payment cards, launched at the beginning of the year, will continue to require enormous investment and commitment by market players. It’s difficult to expect them to expand
into new markets when regulation lowers the incentive to take those risks.  In our view, the best way to proceed for the payments industry and SEPA is to follow the established European public policy principle of relying on competition to deliver what consumers want.”

MasterCard’s Most Disingenuous Ad Campaign Yet?

MasterCard Worldwide’s creative team might think the new “flip” campaign to promote credit and debit cards is priceless (R). But, retailers will be steaming.  The second largest credit card association is using Pavlovian conditioning to train consumers to also reach for their debit card.  They already use sweepstakes to condition cardholders to use their debit card but often then demand that clerks process it at higher credit card rates.

ScanMyPhotos.com regularly has retail photo customers who demand that their cards be processed as credit cards, which we, as lead plaintiff in the merchant interchange antitrust litigation always comply with.

What many cardholders do not understand is when they choose to have their debit card processed at the much higher credit card rate, merchants pay more and therefore so too do they, even though the funds are withdrawn from their back account.

In our opinion, MasterCard’s new “flavor” campaign is another attempt to trick cardholders.  With multi-million  dollar ad buys, the confusion and misinformation will abound.  But, it is nothing when weighed against the plastic card imprinting scheme; where the word “debit” or “check card” is so cleverly hidden that sales clerks often simply process the card at the much higher credit card interchange rate anyway.  Today’s technology enables all electronic payment cards to easily identify whether it is a credit or debit card, but the card associations still require manual identification, which generates enormous windfall profit at the pull of a button.

Below is a copy of the publicly issued press release:

MasterCard Priceless Spots to Have New ‘Flavor’ in 2008
Monday January 14, 9:00 am ET

New television creative to feature both credit and debit payment options for the first time in the history of the Priceless(R) campaign; three new television spots debut today

PURCHASE, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MasterCard Worldwide today introduced a new tag treatment highlighting both credit and debit payment options in its award-winning Priceless television advertising. In the new treatment, the MasterCard logo will “flip” to showcase the two payment forms that consumers use the most – credit and debit.The new tag begins appearing on three new Priceless TV spots – entitled “Catch,” “Dinner Out,” and “Milk” – breaking today and airing in general brand rotation. This marks the first time in the decade-long history of the Priceless campaign that these forms are featured together. The new tag will appear on most Priceless TV advertising moving forward, where appropriate.“MasterCard recognizes that most consumers carry both credit and debit products in their wallets and are now using them more than ever in place of cash and check,” said Amy Fuller, Group Executive, Americas Marketing for MasterCard Worldwide. “To reflect that preference and behavior, we created something that effectively communicates both ‘flavors’ of payment options.”Three new ads break today“Catch” is essentially an anthem to the great parent-child tradition. The 30-second spot opens with a dad playing catch with his son in the backyard but soon spreads across the country. From small towns to big cities, the spot depicts people playing catch with their kids.“Dinner Out” uses puppeteers to tell a story about what happens in the kitchen when an elegantly-dressed couple leaves the house to go out to dinner. They close the door and turn off the lights and all of the kitchen utensils come to life. The pots and pans party; two serving spoons lay together on a couch; a group of utensils sit in a pot of water like a hot tub; and a carving knife watches a scary movie.In “Milk,” a woman arrives at a grocery store on an empty stomach. She’s there to purchase milk and enters the store, only to be shown leaving with a cart overloaded with food. A teenage boy runs out behind her to hand her the carton of milk she had left at the register.Creative for the MasterCard Priceless campaign is handled by McCann Erickson/New York: Joyce King Thomas, EVP, Chief Creative Officer; Robert Frost, SVP, Creative Director; Michele Raso, SVP, Creative Director; Sally Hotchkiss, EVP, Executive Producer; Lisa Brandriff, SVP, Senior Copywriter; Jonathan Shipman, SVP, Deputy Head Broadcast Production; and Chris Cereda, VP, Assoc. Creative Dir.

About MasterCard Worldwide

MasterCard Worldwide advances global commerce by providing a critical economic link among financial institutions, businesses, cardholders and merchants worldwide. As a franchisor, processor and advisor, MasterCard develops and markets payment solutions, processes over 16 billion transactions each year, and provides industry-leading analysis and consulting services to financial institution customers and merchants. Through its family of brands, including MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus®, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For more information go to http://www.mastercard.com.

Contact:

MasterCard Worldwide Jon Schwartz, 914-249-6806 jon_schwartz@mastercard.com or Taylor Michael Kingston, 212-714-1280 mkingston@taylorpr.com

---

Source: MasterCard Worldwide

Good Thing MasterCard Worldwide Has An “Integrity Officer” On Staff

Reaction to the Dec 28 Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor by MasterCard Worldwide’s Integrity Officer.

The EU has found, again, that interchange fees charged by MasterCard to merchants are fixed at anticompetitive levels.  These are the same findings that have been made by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading, and every other investigation by a government enforcement agency.  In his demonstrably incorrect response, Joshua Peirez of MasterCard Worldwide [“EU Killing of Interchange Fees Won’t Help Customers” Letters to the Editor, Dec 28] minimally provides a twinkle of whimsy corporate-speak.  Instead of recognizing that the nearly $40 billion annual hidden tax on merchants and consumers is based on illegal price-fixing, he hauled out the usual replies.

The fact is that consumers, the market place and technology, not interchange fees are what forces innovations within the electronic payment network.  The actual cost to transact an electronic payment is a tiny fraction of the total fees collected, yet Mr. Peirez suggests that “interchange fees are necessary to fairly share the cost of an electronic payment system…”

Merchants are unable to pay a “fair price” for using MasterCard’s [and Visa’s] payment network; we are all forced to submit to their market power and their member banks’ ability to collectively fix interchange fees at noncompetitive levels.

MasterCard’s long history of anticomptitive price-fixing corrupts their understanding of economics 101, where the marketplace controls competition, not a board of directors who stand accused of illegal price-fixing.  Of course prices will be lowered once the nearly 2% forced interchange fees are removed.  In Australia, England and Canada, and in other countries where rates are much lower than in the U.S., the credit card networks are working fine.  [Canada has no interchange fees on PIN-based debit cards].  If it was not gargantuanly profitable, MasterCard and Visa would have pulled out of those markets, and they surely have not.

As for card benefits, study the endless grouping of fees that MasterCard and Visa charge.  For instance, when an affinity frequent-flyer signature card is used, merchants are also taken on a ride.  The interchange fees on those cards are even higher than other categories.

Interchange fees were established in the early 1970s in order to compensate card-issuing banks for the cost of issuing and maintaining credit card accounts. It was designed when merchants had to use bulky manual credit card imprinters and stacks of thick carbon copy receipts that were mailed away for processing.  The check processing system in the United States manages the clearing the billions of paper checks that speed along that system, all without any interchange fees. 

Over the years, the interchange fees charged by Visa and MasterCard have been a multi–billion dollar tool to generate revenues from non-cost based transactions.   While Visa and MasterCard have a history of scorched-earth litigation and are mounting a vigorous public relations battle against its core customers, merchants and cardholders, merchants and consumers continue to challenge their every move.   We understand that competition exists solely for card issuers in the form of ever increasing interchange fees.  The nearly $40 billion annual hidden tax on merchants and consumers is the result of a broken and we are immovable in our commitment to fixing this unjust burden

[Commentary: WayTooHigh.com, in response to The Wall Street Journal “EU Killing of Interchange Fees Won’t Help Customers” Letters to the Editor, Dec 28. See link].

“EU Killing of Interchange Fees Won’t Help Customers” (Letters, WSJ)

Click here to read WSJ Dec 29 Letters from MasterCard Worldwide – subscription required.