Every year Americans pay around $126 billion in swipe fees, which are the amounts collected by credit card networks every time one pays by card. Merchants detest them — by now you must have encountered at least one place willing to give a discount for cash — in no small part because they’ve roughly doubled over the past decade, and have specifically benefited the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard that have held sway over transaction costs for years. There’s a Credit Card Competition Act in Congress right now, which, sure, good luck to it, we wish it the very best, but the real action is going on in the states: Illinois has enacted a modest swipe fee reform, and several other states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Tennessee are all weighing one.
Comments