As discussions on credit and debit card transactions continue, the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) has shared figures on social media that suggest a significant impact on retail sales driven by card payments. A recent tweet highlighted an article from CSP, an industry publication, regarding the growth associated with credit and debit card usage.
According to the article, the MPC reported, "At more than $187 billion, credit and debit card interchange fees reached another new record last year." The tweet sparked some debate due to confusion between interchange fees, which have remained steady at about 1.8% for nearly a decade, and overall processing costs, averaging around 2.3%.
Breaking down these figures, if retailers paid $187 billion in processing costs in the previous year, it indicates that card payments facilitated approximately $7.96 trillion in retail sales. For perspective, these sales figures exceed the GDP of Germany by over $3 trillion.
The MPC suggests that the focus should be on the advantages of card processing systems, which enable businesses to conduct safe, secure transactions and mitigate fraud. The system allows for rapid worldwide payments, operating continuously.
Further criticism arose from an MPC Executive Committee Member, who also serves as Vice President of Government Relations for FMI, The Food Industry Association. They attributed card processing costs to consumer price increases. The article questions whether the controversy around the Durbin-Marshall credit card mandates is an attempt to deflect culpability for other issues.
The statement concludes with a call to invest in new technologies and enforce national data security standards to strengthen the payment infrastructure.