Richard Hunt, Executive Chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), issued a statement following the release of a study by CMSPI on credit card processing costs. The study, funded by large corporate mega-stores, has been labeled as inaccurate by EPC.
“This report is nothing more than paid industry propaganda masquerading as research. MPC has called CMSPI a ‘partner’ and the CMSPI press release even admitted the study was led by the largest corporate mega-stores in the country like Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, Shell, Target, and even Kroger – who just admitted to hiking prices on essentials like milk and eggs faster than inflation,” said Hunt.
He added that "credit card interchange has remained virtually flat at less than 2% for nearly a decade while the price of virtually everything sold by the corporate mega-stores who authored this report has increased."
The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC), which supports new government mandates in the Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Bill, praised CMSPI as a “fantastic partner with us on the advocacy side” during a podcast. The CMSPI press release acknowledged that their study was conducted in partnership with major retail merchants.
Research from Nilson indicates that the weighted average cost of card processing stands at 1.58%, significantly lower than CMSPI's reported figure. This cost is also less than that of accepting and processing cash transactions, which range from over 4.5% to 15%.
The EPC believes that investing in new technologies and legislating national data security standards will lead to a stronger payment system.