The owners of small business from all over the country plans to congregate on Thursday at Capitol Hill to discuss about the extreme credit card swap fees with the members of Congress. The swap fees infact are creating massive trouble for their businesses.
The core problem is that the fees paid are charged every time a deal is done by swiping a credit or debit card. In protest, supporters of the project of Consumers for Competitive Choice (C4CC)-Credit Card Con stated that they will stand for Main Street America for discussion and explain as how these fees assessment actually hold back the growth of job and unjustly lifts consumer prices.
In 2008 alone, the credit card companies swiped 48 billion dollars in these fees which has elevated up to 300 percent since 2001. According to the group, the more dollars they are spending on interchanging fees the less they are able to spend for hiring workers or on offering savings to the consumers.
President Barack Obama on May 22, 2009 signed the “Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009” also known as “CARD Act”. The Act comprised terms to restrict interest rates, limitations on fees and also tough restrains to guard young consumers. However the Act did not deal with interchange fees.
The chief concern of Main Street Businesses remains that, the credit card companies and big banks will persist to develop this dodge by raising credit card interchange fees. The CARD Act is scheduled to go into effect from Feb, 22; but on the other hand Consumers for Competitive Choice decides to tell Congress this week that the work cannot be considered to be completed on financial regulatory reform until excessive interchange fees have been tackled.
