Posted by David S. Evans on 24 November 2009 | 2 Comments
Tags:
General Accountability Office,
GAO,
interchange,
credit card,
fees,
card act,
congress,
regulation,
merchants,
consumer,
mastercard,
visa,
discover,
american express,
card networks,
Last week the General Accountability Office (GAO) released it much awaited report on interchange fees. Congress had asked the GAO, the respected investigative arm of Congress, to wade into this battle between merchants and cards systems earlier this year when it passed the CARD Act. There's something for everyone in this report which is why both merchant and cardholder advocates are claiming that it backs their positions. Here's what GAO finds:
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Posted by Sean Kramer, President and CEO of Element Payment Services on 23 November 2009 | 0 Comments
Tags:
pci,
compliance,
visa,
mastercard,
discover,
american express,
card networks,
credit card,
JCB International,
payments,
validation,
merchants,
PCI SSC,
pts,
standards,
element payment services,
security,
regulation,
A few years ago, in response to a growing number of data security breaches, the major credit card brands formed the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). Since then the PCI SSC has developed a set of security requirements for all businesses that handle payment cards.
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Posted by David S. Evans on 10 November 2009 | 4 Comments
Tags:
credit card,
taxi,
new york city,
taxipass,
jason diaz,
meters,
card issuers,
cash,
payments,
transaction costs,
oliver williamson,
david evans,
ronald coase,
atm,
manhattan,
innovation,
merchants
Does taking plastic get people to spend more money? The card networks certainly think so and have often touted increased sales as one of the reasons why merchants should accept plastic and be happy to pay for it. My skeptical economist colleagues question this. They argue that the main effect of accepting cards is to shift sales from merchants that don't accept cards. But once all the merchants in an industry — say all supermarkets or all liquor stores — take cards, that benefit goes away. And why, they argue, should plastic make people want to spend more money? What miraculous powers could plastic have to make people want to consumer more?
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