Merchants score win over debit-card fees

Associated Press

BOSTON

Congress appears poised to tighten restrictions on the fees that merchants pay when customers swipe debit cards at cash registers.

An amendment that cleared the Senate late Thursday is a loss for card payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard — whose stocks tumbled Friday — as well as major banks that issue cards.

But even if the amendment becomes law, it’s unclear whether savings from reductions in debit-card swipe fees would trickle down to consumers in the form of lower prices or would be kept by merchants.

Swipe fees, formally called interchange fees, are charges that a merchant’s bank pays the issuer of a customer’s card for each electronic transaction.

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