For five years main street merchants have been asking Congress to pass legislation that will create transparency and competition for credit and debit card interchange "swipe fees" and now is the time to step up grassroots and make our pleas heard. Just two weeks ago Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) was successful in amending the Senate??s financial services reform bill with provisions that will provide relief for retailers. Certain members of the House of Representatives and Senate will soon meet in a conference to determine the fate of the critical reform.
The amendment does three things:
- Directs the Federal Reserve to ensure that fees charged for debit card transactions are reasonable and proportional to the actual cost incurred
- Eliminates some of the anti-competitive rules imposed by Visa and MasterCard that prevent retailers from encouraging consumers to use lower cost forms of payment
- Authorizes retailers to set minimum purchase requirements for credit card transactions
Please click here to send the letter below to your members of Congress- both the House and the Senate.
"On May 13, by a bipartisan 64-33 vote, the Senate included an amendment to the Financial Services Regulatory Reform bill offered by Senator Richard Durbin.
This amendment protects main street merchants and consumers by:
Allowing the Federal Reserve to regulate electronic checks (as they currently regulate paper checks); Allowing merchants to incentivize customers to use less expensive payment methods (cash, debit or lower interchange credit cards) by offering discounts; and, Allowing merchants (if they choose) to set minimum and maximum amounts that can be used for credit transactions.
Every portion of this amendment is essential to assure merchants are charged a competitive rate for "swipe fees" and that merchants can in turn pass savings on to consumers.
This past year, convenience store owners collected over 5.4 million signatures from our customers asking for this relief. On behalf of these consumers and America's small businesses, please ask conferees to accept the Durbin language as passed by the Senate in the House/Senate Financial Services reform conference committee."
NACS Staff Contact: Lyle Beckwith, lbeckwith@nacsonline.com
The Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health this week unveiled a new Web site for reporting food safety issues.
The site, called the Safety Reporting Portal, will let individuals and companies report safety problems related to food. According to the FDA certain food manufacturers, processors, packers, and holders may already be required by law to submit safety reports under some circumstances and this site will make it easy follow the requirements.
Also the site says that "others, including concerned citizens, health professionals, and public health officials, may voluntarily submit reports if they encounter safety issues with a product and/or unanticipated harmful effects that they believe are related to a product."
The FDA called the portal the "first step toward a common electronic reporting system that will offer one-stop shopping, allowing an individual to file a single report to multiple agencies that may have an interest in the event."
NACS Staff Contact: Julie Fields, jfields@nacsonline.com
The U.S. Postal Service finalized its regulations under the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking ("PACT") Act this week. The USPS determined the exact labels that tobacco mailings will have to bear.
Among other things, the PACT Act provides that, with some exceptions, cigarettes and smokeless tobacco may not be mailed in the United States. NACS submitted comments generally in support of the Postal Service's proposed regulations implementing the law, and is pleased with the final regulations.
Along with future regulations to be developed by the Department of Justice, the hope is that when fully implemented the PACT Act will fulfill its purposes of reducing or eliminating cigarette smuggling and preventing tax avoidance by Internet and other remote sellers of tobacco.
NACS Staff Contact: Lyle Beckwith, lbeckwith@nacsonline.com