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House Committee Takes Up Interchange |
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The U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today (April 28) on the Credit Card Fair Fee Act. The bill, H.R. 2695, was introduced last June by panel Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.
It would provide a limited antitrust immunity for electronic payment systems and merchants, allowing them to jointly negotiate and agree upon rates and terms for access to their systems. The negotiated rates and terms would apply to all participants regardless of system type or volume of transactions. The bill also calls for disclosures of itemized costs and access agreements. H.R. 2695 had 17 cosponsors as of mid-March.
In conjunction with the hearing, ETA provided a written statement to the Judiciary Committee opposing the legislation.ETA maintains that the bill will adversely affect the payments industry in a variety of ways. "First, the bill seeks to interfere in the carefully calibrated risk mitigation of electronic payments systems, ETA's statement said, "second, the bill seeks to have government set artificial price points in a market upon which participation is voluntary and negotiated; and last, there is no evidence that the bill’s price-setting construct would produce cost savings for merchants or guarantee that merchants would pass price reductions, if any, on to consumers."
The statenment also argued that 'as an attempt to insert the federal government into a series of business-to-business agreements, H.R. 2695 would hurt consumers, not help them.
Read the full statement.
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Upcoming Events |
| April 17-19, 2012
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