Retailers claim credit card swipe fees are driving inflation

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. The percentage seems to have gone up a bit, according to this from July 2023

The fee increases are especially egregious considering the fact that since 2021, swipe fees have increased 16.7% while sales have only grown 12.3%.

https://nrf.com/blog/10-things-know-about-swipe-fees

Whether that's because of a direct rise in fees, or a change in the mix of the type of card, or the values of transactions (in Oct 2023, the normal fee structure was $0.10 plus a percentage of the value - and the percentage varied depending on the retailer size - large ones might pay 1.43%, and smaller 1.51% - and also on card (transaction?) type - "Visa Infinite Spend Qualified" is charged at 2.3%. If anyone can explain what "Infinite Spend Qualified" means, it might help. But that fee increase is only 0.1% extra inflation for the total price.

The US charges seem significantly higher than in the EU:

The average swipe fee charged on Visa credit cards in the U.K. is 0.55 percent of the transaction amount, or nearly double the maximum 0.3 percent allowed under European Union rules before Brexit, and totaled $369 million in 2020, according to payments consulting firm CMSPI.

The impact is far greater in the United States, where the market is larger and cards are more widely used. Swipe fees on U.S. Visa credit card transactions totaled $43.5 billion in 2020, more than 100 times the amount collected in the U.K., according to CMSPI. And Visa’s 2.22 percent average swipe fee in the United States is four times the U.K. rate.

https://merchantspaymentscoalition.com/merchants-renew-call-us-action-credit-card-swipe-fees-after-amazon-and-visa-resolve-dispute-uk

Which makes some sense - I seem to remember asking why a shop in the EU didn't take American Express (many years ago), and they explained that it charged an extortionate 2%.