HIGHSTOWN & CRANFORD, N.J. – The New Jersey Credit Union League and New Jersey Bankers Association have collaborated on an issue that is common to the members of both organizations: interchange.
With legislation on interchange that is backed by retailers currently pending in Trenton, N.J., the CEOs of both trade associations have jointly authored an op-ed that is appearing in a number of publications in the state. In the op-ed, written by David C. Frankil, president of the New Jersey CU League, and John E. McWeeney, Jr., president of the New Jersey Bankers Association, write that the Durbin Amendment has meant that retailers are “padding their bottom line with an annual windfall of $6-$8 billion (now up to $36 billion and counting since the Amendment took effect). Sounds too good to be true for the retailers, right? It is. They were supposed to pass their savings on to customers, but instead they kept prices the same or even raised them.”
“Not satisfied with this massive government redistribution, merchants are back asking for more,” the op-ed goes on to say. “In addition to intrusive government price controls on debit transactions (otherwise known as the “merchant markup”), merchants are greedily seeking to expand anti-free-market protectionism to apply to credit transactions — all at the expense of New Jersey customers. While merchant groups grudgingly acknowledge a windfall from lower interchange, they go to great lengths to cover up who’s truly benefitting — namely, themselves.”
The full op-ed can be found here.