Swipe Fee Revolution

The typical American probably doesn?t think much about the behind-the-scenes workings of his or her credit cards. But beneath the placid surface of swiping and signing, a ferocious legal battle has been waged for years that this week became the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history. Since the ability to accept credit cards is useful to merchants and launching a new payment network is difficult, Visa, MasterCard, and other card-issuing banks can charge stores for access. And pay merchants do in the form of lucrative swipe fees to the credit card companies. These fees are, somewhat oddly, not only hidden from customers? view but in a strange way not even charged to the card users whose actions incur them. The standard terms tell stores that not only must they pay extra for each credit card purchase, but they must not up-charge customers who use cards. Insofar as the card fees raise consumer prices, in other words, the pain must be spread evenly across the entire purchasing population no matter how they pay.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=1042970708c7457ae48887c2d46dad82

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