WASHINGTON – On Thursday, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on a financial bill that limits fees credit card companies charge merchants, The Hill reports. In recent weeks, both retailers and card companies have been lobbying Congress about interchange fees.
Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) sponsored a bill that would clamp down on interchange fees. On Wednesday, Welch came to a rally with NACS and 7-Eleven store operators, which had collected 1.6 million signatures on petitions supporting the new restrictions.
On the flip side, card companies argue that the measure is not at all about protecting small retailers. “The big-box retailers, hiding behind some of the convenience-store folks, want to use the electronic payment system for free, which is ridiculous when they get higher sales, convenience from having to deal with cash, guaranteed payment for their services and products, and all the risk associated with credit cards gets passed onto the financial institutions,” said Dan Berger, executive vice president of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.