Alot has changed on the credit card fee front since last year’s NACS/Convenience Store DecisionsWebcast, but retailers are still faced with the daunting challenge of finding creative ways to bypass the high interchange fees that plague the c-store industry.
The industry’s efforts to battle these fees is getting attention, fostering the hope that real relief is in sight.
NACS President and CEO Hank Armour told CSD that over the past year alone, Congress held more than a dozen hearings dealing with credit card fees, four of which were specifically about interchange fees. MasterCard did an IPO to try and insulate themselves from go-forward antitrust liability and Visa has announced plans to do the same. MasterCard put a $75 cap on the amount of a transaction subject to interchange and Visa has recently changed some chargeback treatments in retailers’ favor.
