WASHINGTON – The Electronic Payments Coalition, comprised of banks and credit unions, vowed yesterday to fight a new bill that would allow large retailers to negotiate bilateral interchange fee agreements on transactions with card issuers.
The bill is similar to one introduced last Congress by Rep. John Conyers and would allow the bilateral negotiations as an option to the unilateral fee structure imposed by Visa and MasterCard. It would provide for a third-party overseer of the negotiations to bypass antitrust concerns.
Conyers, whose bill died on the vine last year, said the measure is an attempt to add competition to the market for interchange, which rose to $48 billion last year, from $36 billion two years ago. Interchange fees have become a major profit center for credit unions, who reaped more than $5 billion in interchange revenue last year.
"This legislation is an attempt by giant retailers to make consumers pay for one of their business expenses - the cost of accepting credit and debit. It's simple: merchants do not want to pay their fair share to accept debit and credit cards, and they want consumers to foot the bill," said the payments coalition, which is comprised of banks, CUNA, NAFCU, Visa and MasterCard.
