Category Archives: Merchant Services

Financial CHOICE Act Will Turbocharge the American Economy

Posted on by
Reply

Washington, June 28, 2016 – 15 national conservative organizations and prominent activists announced they “wholeheartedly endorse” the Financial CHOICE Act, saying the Republican plan to replace the failed Dodd-Frank Act will “turbocharge the American economy.”

“If we want the economy to improve — if we want to give all Americans the chance to prosper again — we need to put an end to Washington’s destructive regulatory agenda once and for all,” the conservative groups write in their endorsement letter.  “The Financial CHOICE Act aims to curb regulations to create opportunity and choice for investors, consumers, and entrepreneurs nationwide.”

The conservative organizations highlighted key features of the Financial CHOICE Act in their endorsement, noting the Republican plan will end taxpayer-funded bailouts for “too big to fail” banks, demand accountability from financial regulators, and “end the crony debit card price control scheme.”

“The Financial CHOICE Act will replace Dodd-Frank’s Orderly Liquidation Authority, which allows financial institutions to be bailed out at the taxpayers’ expense, with a newly updated subchapter of the bankruptcy code.”

“The Durbin Amendment imposed price controls and other mandates on debit card transaction fees with the false promise that billions would be passed on to consumers. Consumers have not received the promised discount. In fact, studies show that many consumers have lost access to free checking and debit card rewards as a result.”

“Housed at the Federal Reserve, the CFPB has the ability to put entire industries out of business with the snap of its fingers. Its unelected director can simply declare financial products “abusive” and outlaw them without Congressional approval. The Financial CHOICE Act will replace the single director with a bipartisan, five-member committee subject to congressional oversight and appropriations.”

“Dodd-Frank is a failure.  Democrats told us it would ‘promote financial stability,’ ‘end Too Big to Fail,’ and ‘lift the economy.’  But Dodd-Frank has done the exact opposite,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).  “The Financial CHOICE Act offers economic growth for all and bank bailouts for none.  It’s the Republican plan to reignite growth by replacing Dodd-Frank with real reforms that work.”

To read the letter, click here. (PDF download from Federal website)

To learn more about the Financial CHOICE Act, visit FinancialServices.house.gov/CHOICE.

 

Merchants Oppose Poison Pill That Undercuts Competition, Main Street and Consumers

Posted on by
Reply

“Without debit reform’s competition-enhancing standards, banks would be free to return to the days of unfettered price fixing.”

June 24, 2016 WASHINGTON (BUSINESS WIRE)

Yesterday, Chairman Jeb Hensarling of the House Financial Services Committee gave a speech about his commitment to helping Main Street and ending government bailouts. Unfortunately, the draft bill he released later in the day does the exact opposite.

Section 335 of chairman’s Hensarling’s discussion draft of the “CHOICE Act” favors the interests of fewer than two percent of the nation’s largest banks and the credit-card brands over the interests of small retailers, their employees and consumers in every Congressional district in the country.

This bill would turn back reforms that created a freer market and prevented Visa and MasterCard from price-fixing the fees their member banks charge merchants when customers swipe a debit card to buy something. Rep. Hensarling would turn the clock back six years to when financial institutions operated this “swipe fee” business as a rigged market without competition.

The reforms Rep. Hensarling proposes to repeal also brought competition into the debit- routing market, where previously there was none. Repealing these reforms removes requirements for networks to compete and paves the way for network monopolies, reducing our payment security while raising costs for all American consumers and retailers and harming our economy as a whole.

“Without debit reform’s competition-enhancing standards, banks would be free to return to the days of unfettered price fixing,” said Mallory Duncan, chairman of the Merchants Payments Coalition and senior vice president and general counsel at the National Retail Federation. “It’s important to remember that despite the smokescreen the big banks put up, debit reform is an incontrovertible success and should be protected.”

Join the millions of Main Street businesses in every Congressional district in calling for Chairman Hensarling to remove his poison-pill language that leaves the debit- card market without competition.

The Merchants Payments Coalition represents 2.7 million stores, including restaurants, supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, gas stations, on-line merchants and others, with 50 million employees, fighting unfair credit-card fees and working for a competitive and transparent system for merchants and consumers.

Contacts
Merchants Payments Coalition
Michael Flagg, 202-253-4164

NRF Says Overturning Dodd-Frank Would Reinstitute Price Fixing by Card Companies

Posted on by
Reply

June 7, 2016 WASHINGTON – The National Retail Federation today released the following statement after Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, announced plans to repeal swipe-fee reform and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

“Today Jeb Hensarling announced that he wants to repeal an important competitive change in Dodd-Frank reform and return to the bad old days when card companies and banks freely picked the public’s pocket,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said.

 

“Protecting bank profit margins at the expense of competition is not sound public policy and it will harm merchants and consumers. The financial services industry attempted to get Congress to reject transparency and competition in 2010 and again in 2011. Both efforts failed. On behalf of retailers and their customers, NRF will fight for free and open markets.”

Swipe fees on debit and credit cards are many retailers’ second-largest operating cost, behind labor. These fees threaten small retailers with failure and keep merchants from hiring and expanding, slowing the entire economy. Exorbitant swipe fees also mean consumers pay higher prices. American merchants and consumers still pay the highest swipe fees in the world on debit and credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Under the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection and Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, the Federal Reserve was required to adopt regulations that would result in debit swipe fees that were “reasonable and proportional” to the actual cost of processing a transaction. Federal Reserve staff calculated the average cost at 4 cents per transaction and proposed a cap no higher than 12 cents. Nonetheless, after heavy lobbying from banks the Federal Reserve Board of Governors eventually settled on 21 cents plus 0.05 percent of the transaction for fraud recovery and allowed another 1 cent for fraud prevention in most cases. The cap, which applies only to financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets, took effect in 2011 and totals about 24 cents on a typical debit card transaction.

NRF is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing discount and department stores, home goods and specialty stores, Main Street merchants, grocers, wholesalers, chain restaurants and Internet retailers from the United States and more than 45 countries. Retail is the nation’s largest private sector employer, supporting one in four U.S. jobs – 42 million working Americans. Contributing $2.6 trillion to annual GDP, retail is a daily barometer for the nation’s economy. NRF’s This is Retail campaign highlights the industry’s opportunities for life-long careers, how retailers strengthen communities, and the critical role that retail plays in driving innovation. nrf.com

###

Distributor EMV Credit Card Terminals – Profit busters, profit boosters

Posted on by
Reply

Distributors have special needs for retail credit card processing to maximize profits and mitigate risk. Here we identify credit card terminals that are certain fall short on delivering in an EMV environment. The two most critical retail needs are requiring customers to comply with the highest security supported, and supporting level III processing. Additionally, P2PE, encrypting at the terminal head, is important for a security and compliance.

Only cloud payment solutions have the potential to meet the primary distributor retail processing needs.  This precludes all First Data terminals, one of the most popular brands distributed, and similar devices. DISCLAIMER: comments are specifically regarding business to business needs, not all retail industry needs, and are not in any way intended to imply anything negative about the terminals.

The terminals below DO NOT meet the two most critical distributor needs to maximize profits.

verifone vx520 emv terminal

Verifone vx520

Clover Mini by First Data

Clover Mini by First Data

First Data FD35 EMV pin pad terminal

First Data FD35 EMV PinPad, attaches to a variety of FD terminals.

Ingenico iCT250 emv capable countertop terminal.

Ingenico iCT250 emv capable countertop terminal.

magtek mini card swiper

Magtek mini card swiper.

The terminals below have the POTENTIAL meet the two most critical distributor needs to maximize profits. Special certifications and payment gateway logic is required.

ingenico isc250 signature capture terminal

Ingenico isc250 EMV

 

verifone MX915 EMV terminal

Verifone MX915 EMV chip terminal

Fraud liability review for MasterCard, American Express, and Discover (credit and debit)

  • If the card is chip & sign, and the terminal is EMV only, the card issuer is liable
  • If the card is chip & pin, and the terminal is EMV without pin, or pin debit without EMV, the merchant is liable
  • If the card is chip & pin, and the terminal is EMV with pin, the issuer is liable
  • If the terminal supports EMV & pin, but the customer uses chip & sign, the merchant is liable. Acquirers generally support chip and pin bypass to chip and signature. Merchants should only use solutions that require the highest security on every transaction, including prohibiting customer bypass.
  • If the terminal supports EMV & pin, but the customer does chip & sign, the merchant is liable.

Merchants should only use solutions that require the highest security on every transaction, including prohibiting customer bypass.

If you want to enhance your customer experience, make a change that also maximizes profits too.

Christine Speedy, CenPOS global sales and integrated solutions reseller, 954-942-0483. CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS? secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting merchant banking relationships. Keep your processor, upgrade your technology! Quick and easy to implement with no long term contract.