Payment reform consortium the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) has added the merchants of the Airport Restaurant and Retail Association (ARRA) to its roster.
Representatives from MPC, which represents retailers in lobbying against increasingly high credit card processing fees, cited airport industry merchants as especially impacted by the effects of current fee structures.
“We welcome ARRA members to the fight for fair, competitive swipe fees,” said MPC executive committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores general counsel Doug Kantor. “These businesses see the impact of these out-of-control fees every day and their involvement shows that swipe fees touch virtually every merchant whether they do business downtown, at the mall, online or even at the airport.”
“Airport merchants continue to recover from the pandemic and still face many challenges including high credit card swipe fees that drive up the cost of doing business and prices for our customers,” added ARRA executive director Andrew Weddig. “Our members desperately need relief from unjustifiably high swipe fees and we know the banking industry’s scare tactics about rewards going away are false. Bringing competition to swipe fees will only help businesses that rely on travel and tourism.”
ARRA joins MPC as U.S. lawmakers discuss the Credit Card Competition Act, which would require larger banks to process fees from competing services outside of dominant platforms Visa and Mastercard. Credit and debit card swipe fees have more than doubled over the past decade, hitting a record $172.05 billion last year.
