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An interchange fee is a percentage of a credit card transaction that Visa and MasterCard collect from retailers each time a credit or debit card is used. The amount varies with type of card, transaction and merchant, but averages about 2 percent.

NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan, who also serves as chairman of the Merchants Trade Coalition, a group of trade associations representing merchants who accept credit cards, spoke out against the fees during the National Conference of State Legislatures’ spring meeting in Washington.

He told legislators that interchange fees are of particular concern because they are added to the transaction after sales tax has been applied to purchases, resulting in a larger fee than if it applied only to merchandise.

Retailers are required to remit the entire sales tax amount to state treasuries, so merchandise must be priced high enough to compensate for the interchange charged on the sales tax, he said.

Nine states have introduced at least 15 pieces of legislation dealing with interchange fees this year, including measures to ban them on the sales tax portion of transactions in Florida, Kansas, Nevada, New York and Washington.

A bill in Tennessee would cap interchange rates at 0.75 percent. Some states have multiple bills pending that address various aspects of interchange.

Most consumers do not know that they are paying an interchange fee because Visa and MasterCard do not disclose the charge on monthly statements and prohibit retailers from showing it on receipts.

The two credit card companies collected about $36 billion worth of interchange fees during 2006, up 17 percent from the year before and 117.5 percent since 2001.

With the 2 percent average rate roughly equal to the retail industry’s average profit margin, Duncan explained to legislators that retailers cannot absorb the charge and are effectively required to pass it on to consumers. Since Visa and MasterCard require the advertised price of merchandise to be the credit card price and make cash discounts difficult, the fee drives up prices even for consumers who pay by cash or check, he said.

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee plans to hold a hearing about interchange fees this year, and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee might include the issue in its investigation of abusive credit card industry practices and fees.

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