Small business pushes credit card reform - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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It’s a figure a group of small business ownersx say credit cardcompanies don’t want but one that consumers need to know. “Thwe continuing burden of or swipe fees on smal business owners has become heavier and heavier to It is the second largest expensdbehind payroll. It is something we are extremelyworrief about,” said Jim Smith, president of the Florida Petroleum Marketef and Convenience Store Association, durinfg a Monday news conference. Credit card on the other hand, say the fees are simplyg the cost ofdoing business.
Credirt card swipe fees – called interchange fees by the big bankzs that set theserates – are a percentage of each transactionm that Visa and MasterCard and their member bankes collect from retailers every time a credit or debit card is These fees average about 2 percen in the U.S., according to the , the associatiobn for convenience and petroleum retailing, which put together Monday’ s news conference. In 2008, credit card fees cost U.S. convenience store s $8.4 billion, compared with $5.2 billion in storwe profits, according to NACS data. Almosf all of these credit card fees are attributabler to credit cardswipes fees.
Convenience store owner Brucre Mitchell said his operation paid out morethan $3 millioj in credit card fees last year. “I am payin 25 percent more for credit card fees than I pay in he said. Recently, tax offices in four Florida countiesa – Marion, Walton, Osceola and Brevardf – said they will no longer accept Visa becauss there was no room in theif budgets to absorb the swipe fee The coalitionnoted that, while countyu governments have the ability to say no because Floridians must pay their taxes, businesses can’g afford to say no to credit card The groups are pushing for legislation that would either require credit card companies to reveal swipr fees or allow merchants to negotiate those thus leveling the playing Federal lawmakers recently reintroduced the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, whic NACS said would give merchants “a seat at the negotiatintg table with banks to determind the fees assessed for every sale made by credit card, and ultimately reducd the costs of everyday goodse for consumers.
” But, the , an organization that representws payment card networks, financial services companies and financia services trade associations, said in a new release that retailera are trying “to make consumers pay for one of theitr business expenses – the cost of acceptintg credit and debit.”