October 26, 2009
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News: Beer and Credit Cards
Ok, so beer and credit cards; what's the connection? Anheuser-Busch, the largest brewer in the United States, has joined the fight against exorbitant credit card interchange fees. Mr. David Peacock, President of Anheuser-Busch sent a letter to The Association for Convenience & Retailing (NACS) throwing in their support in the movement to implement legislation that would rein in escalating interchange fees that major credit card networks charge for each payment transaction. Anheuser-Busch is the first major vendor to become strong advocates for the retail industry. One might wonder why the company would want to become involved; however, the NACS represents convenience stores and gas stations across the country who account for a very large portion of beer and wine sales. Many of these merchants have been hit hard by the large interchange fees and have found their businesses threatened.
The letter which was received by Hank Armour, President of NACS, was tagged as a "letter of public support" according to Mr. Lyle Beckwith, Senior Vice President of the association's Government Relations division. Mr.Beckwith, told the CSNEWS that they are please to have Anheuser-Busch as a supporter of their efforts to get legislation passed that would stop the unfair practices and unbalanced system of assessing debit and credit card payment transaction fees. Some retailers are paying 50 percent or more of the sales transactions to the banks and credit card companies. Convenience stores such as 7-Eleven have been hit the hardest because their sales transactions typically average less than $10. Furthermore, when a customer takes a cash advance at the time of the transaction, the merchant must also pay a fee against the cash that is given out which can sometimes amount to more than the cost of the product.
Recently 7-Eleven and Circle K gas stations and stores conducted a petition drive and collected nearly two million signatures which they presented to lawmakers at a Congressional hearing last month. At the NACS Show in Las Vegas, NV last week, the association launched their own petition drive. The NACS Consumer Credit Card Fee Petition Drive collected thousands of signatures in support of their efforts. Recently, the financial industry gained massive support of their own from the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC) when the coalition launched an advertising campaign attacking the product pricing practices of convenience stores.