Refer To：《Excessive Swipe Fees and Barriers to Competition in the Credit and Debit Card Systems》。

MAY 4, 2022 2022 年 5 月 4 日

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify on the swipe fees that are imposed by the credit card industry on merchants. Most consumers are not aware of these fees and do not see the effects they create on the cost of goods and services and the U.S. economy, but those effects are dramatic. For merchants, the fees are a constant source of stress and financial difficulty, while for the economy the fees reduce economic efficiency and contribute significantly to inflation.

感谢您给我机会就信用卡行业对商家征收的刷卡费作证。大多数消费者不了解这些费用，也没有看到它们对商品和服务成本以及美国经济造成的影响，但这些影响是显著的。对于商家来说，这些费用是持续的压力和财务困难的来源，而对于经济来说，这些费用降低了经济效率，并显著助长了通货膨胀。

I am testifying today on behalf of my association, the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), as well as a coalition that we helped found to try to address these issues, the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC). NACS is an international trade association representing the interests of the convenience industry. In the United States, the industry includes more than 148,000 stores employing 2.3 million people. It is truly an industry of small business with a full 60 percent of the industry comprised of single-store operators. The industry handles about 165 million transactions each day - a number equivalent to about half of the U.S. population. An efficient and competitive payment system is critical to the health of the industry and its employees.

我今天代表我的协会——全国便利店协会（NACS），以及我们帮助成立的一个旨在解决这些问题的联盟——商家支付联盟（MPC）作证。NACS 是一个国际贸易协会，代表便利行业的利益。在美国，该行业包括超过 148,000 家商店，雇佣了 230 万人。它确实是一个小企业的行业，其中 60%的行业由单店经营者组成。该行业每天处理约 1.65 亿笔交易——相当于美国人口的一半。一个高效且具有竞争力的支付系统对行业及其员工的健康至关重要。

The MPC is a group of retailers, supermarkets, restaurants, drug stores, convenience stores, gas stations, online merchants, and other businesses focused on reforming the U.S. payment system to make it more transparent and competitive.

MPC 是由零售商、超市、餐馆、药店、便利店、加油站、在线商家和其他企业组成的团体，致力于改革美国支付系统，使其更加透明和具有竞争力。

The credit and debit card systems in the United States are burdened by anti-competitive conduct that makes the systems less efficient and effective than they should be. Two payment card networks, Visa and Mastercard, dominate the market and bring together thousands of banks across the nation to wield market power in ways that harm competition in the marketplace. Merchants have no realistic options to the dominant networks. With very few exceptions, merchants must accept all credit and debit cards that run over those two networks no matter how high the fees the networks charge and no matter how onerous the rules and conditions they impose. The high fees that result from this exercise in market power inflate the costs of goods and services across the nation in a way that harms consumers.

美国的信用卡和借记卡系统因反竞争行为而受到负担，这使得系统的效率和效果低于应有水平。两大支付卡网络，Visa 和 Mastercard，主导市场，将全国数千家银行聚集在一起，以损害市场竞争的方式行使市场权力。商家对这些主导网络没有现实的选择。除极少数例外，商家必须接受通过这两个网络运行的所有信用卡和借记卡，无论网络收取的费用多高，无论他们施加的规则和条件多么苛刻。这种市场权力行使所导致的高额费用以损害消费者的方式推高了全国商品和服务的成本。

Visa and Mastercard each separately set the fee rates for the swipe, or interchange, fees that all the banks that issue cards with those networks charge to merchants. Because the swipe fees are centrally set in this way, the banks don’t compete on price. That leads to problems that are common for anti-competitive arrangements - high and escalating prices and neglect of key aspects of the service (such as protection against fraud). Visa and Mastercard also dictate a complex set of terms or rules that govern how credit card transactions happen. These terms further insulate swipe fees from competitive market pressures and, in most cases, keep the fees confusing for merchants and hidden from consumers.

Visa 和 Mastercard 分别设定刷卡费率或交换费率，这些费率是所有发行这些网络卡的银行向商家收取的。由于刷卡费是以这种方式集中设定的，银行在价格上没有竞争。这导致了反竞争安排中常见的问题——价格高且不断上涨，以及忽视服务的关键方面（如防止欺诈的保护）。Visa 和 Mastercard 还规定了一套复杂的条款或规则，管理信用卡交易的进行。这些条款进一步使刷卡费免受竞争市场压力的影响，并且在大多数情况下，使商家感到费率复杂且对消费者隐藏。

In particular, by imposing a rule that requires a merchant to accept all cards issued with a Visa (or Mastercard) logo if the merchant wants to accept any cards carrying those networks, the two largest networks remove the incentives for banks to negotiate with merchants on price or acceptance of their cards - and remove almost all bargaining power that merchants otherwise might have had. This is a central element of the credit and debit card systems in the United States today and creates additional competition policy problems.

特别是，通过强制规定商家如果想接受任何带有 Visa（或万事达卡）标志的卡，则必须接受所有发行的卡，这两个最大的网络消除了银行与商家就价格或接受其卡进行谈判的动机——并几乎完全消除了商家本来拥有的议价能力，可能曾经有过。这是当今美国信用卡和借记卡系统的核心要素，并产生了额外的竞争政策问题。

这一切给消费者、商家和经济带来的问题是巨大的。去年对商家征收的卡费总额为1380亿美元，高于2010年的640亿美元。 其中，775亿美元是Visa和万事达卡品牌信用卡的费用，280亿美元是Visa和万事达卡品牌借记卡的费用——仅这两个网络就为1055亿美元。费用的规模以及它们主要以交易金额的百分比来设定的事实意味着它们是通货膨胀的乘数。 美国已经支付了工业化世界中最高的刷卡费。 两个占主导地位的卡网络所发挥的作用以及它们设定的费用和条款也通过减少新支付产品的创新激励和改进欺诈防护等服务而造成其他问题。 美国应该拥有世界上最高效、最有效和最具创新性的支付系统，但我们没有。 这个市场迫切需要变革，以便有竞争的市场力量来改善每个人的支付。

This testimony will cover a few topics relating to swipe fees. First, it will lay out some background on how credit and debit card payments work. Second, it will address the competition policy problems created by those payment systems. Third, the testimony will discuss the negative impact these fees have on merchants. Fourth, the testimony will note the negative impact of the fees on consumers. Fifth, it will describe the negative impact of swipe fees on the U.S. economy. Sixth, it will walk through a number of the myths that the credit card industry regularly espouses in order to distract from the problems with these payments.

本次证词将涵盖与刷卡费相关的几个主题。首先，将介绍信用卡和借记卡支付的运作背景。其次，将讨论这些支付系统所产生的竞争政策问题。第三，证词将讨论这些费用对商家的负面影响。第四，证词将指出这些费用对消费者的负面影响。第五，将描述刷卡费对美国经济的负面影响。第六，将揭示信用卡行业经常宣扬的一些神话，以转移对这些支付问题的注意力。

In order to understand the competition problems with the credit and debit card markets, it helps to have some background on how these payments work. Neither Visa nor Mastercard, the two largest card networks, has a direct relationship with individual cardholders. Financial institutions such as banks and credit unions actually enter into agreements with individuals and issue cards to them. The structure is similar with merchants. The merchants contract with banks or payment processors to handle the merchants’ acceptance of payment cards.

为了理解信用卡和借记卡市场的竞争问题，了解这些支付方式的运作方式是有帮助的。Visa 和 Mastercard 这两个最大的卡网络都没有与个人持卡人直接建立关系。实际上，银行和信用社等金融机构与个人签订协议并向他们发卡。商户的结构也类似。商户与银行或支付处理商签订合同，以处理商户对支付卡的接受。

Visa and Mastercard actually started as associations of their bank members.  They do a few things to make card payments happen. They maintain data lines that connect the banks that issue cards to consumers with the banks that work with merchants. They also advertise their brands to make the cards more appealing to consumers and businesses. And, they set the prices that the card issuers charge to merchants as well as the rules that govern how cards are issued and processed. It is this price- and rule-setting role that raises antitrust issues to be addressed below.

Visa 和万事达实际上最初是由其银行成员组成的协会。 他们做了一些事情来促成卡支付的实现。他们维护连接发卡银行与商户合作银行的数据线路。他们还宣传他们的品牌，使卡片对消费者和企业更具吸引力。此外，他们设定发卡机构向商户收取的价格以及管理卡片发行和处理的规则。正是这种定价和规则制定的角色引发了下面要解决的反垄断问题。

A good explanation of the process of a card payment can be found at knowyourpayments.com.  In the simplest terms, when an individual dips or swipes a payment card at a store, the information necessary to process that payment goes to the merchant’s bank (or processor) who sends the information to a card network (e.g., Visa or Mastercard) and that network sends the information to the card issuer (the bank that gave the consumer that card), then a message authorizing the transaction (or declining it) goes back through each of those entities to the merchant’s payment terminal allowing the transaction to take place. The clearance and settlement of the funds takes place later through a similar process. The graphic below depicting this basic process can be found at corporatetools.com.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, credit cards accounted for 27 percent of consumer transactions in 2020, debit cards accounted for 28 percent, and cash was 19 percent.  This represented a large jump in credit card payments, which had been 24 percent of payments in 2019.

根据旧金山联邦储备银行的《消费者支付选择日记》，2020年，信用卡占消费者交易的27%，借记卡占28%，现金占19%。 这代表了信用卡支付的大幅增长，2019年占支付额的24%。

There are fees that each player involved in the processing of the card takes out of the amount that the merchant gets paid in the transaction. By far the largest fee is the swipe fee, or interchange fee, which goes to the bank that issued the consumer the card. That fee alone can account for about 80-85 percent of all of the fees involved in the transaction. The networks, such as Visa and Mastercard, impose their own separate fees, called network fees, in addition to the swipe fees. And, the merchant’s processor or bank receives a fee for its services. Processing is a reasonably competitive market. Merchants don’t always like how much they pay in those processor fees, but they have options to do business with different processors (or negotiate new agreements) and that helps discipline that cost. Merchant concerns about network fees are different than concerns about swipe fees. Networks set their own fee amounts, which is appropriate. Unfortunately, the two major networks have structured and applied their network fees to have certain anti-competitive effects to protect and grow their market power. The networks’ market share and the way the networks bring together the card-issuing banks has enabled them to do this. Those concerns are related to, but different than, the problem created by anti-competitive behavior in the setting of swipe fees by the two major networks on behalf of card-issuing banks, which is discussed below.

在交易中，每个参与处理卡片的玩家都会从商家获得的金额中收取费用。目前最大的费用是刷卡费或称为交换费，这笔费用支付给发卡银行。仅这一项费用就占交易中所有费用的约 80-85%。像 Visa 和 Mastercard 这样的网络，除了刷卡费外，还会收取他们自己的独立费用，称为网络费。此外，商家的处理器或银行也会因其服务而收取费用。处理市场是一个相对竞争的市场。商家并不总是喜欢他们在这些处理器费用上支付的金额，但他们可以选择与不同的处理器合作（或协商新的协议），这有助于控制成本。商家对网络费用的担忧与对刷卡费用的担忧不同。网络自行设定费用金额，这是合适的。不幸的是，这两个主要网络已经结构化并应用了他们的网络费用，以产生某些反竞争效果，以保护和扩大他们的市场力量。 网络的市场份额以及网络将发卡银行聚集在一起的方式使他们能够做到这一点。这些问题与两大网络代表发卡银行设定刷卡费时的反竞争行为所造成的问题有关，但有所不同，下面将对此进行讨论。

Credit card issuing is very concentrated among a small number of very large banks. The ten largest credit card issuers in the United States collectively have about 80 percent of the credit card issuance market. Those issuers compete to get consumers to get and use their cards. They do this through a complex set of pricing mechanisms that include interest rates, a variety of rewards offerings, and a number of potential penalty fees and related terms. These complex pricing mechanisms can be difficult for consumers to evaluate and may lead them to choose offers that are less favorable than other offers.  And, the enticement of credit card offers can lead consumers to create financial problems for themselves that are challenging to fix.

信用卡发行高度集中在少数几家大型银行。美国最大的十家信用卡发行商共同占据了约 80%的信用卡发行市场。那些发行商通过一套复杂的定价机制来竞争，以吸引消费者获取和使用他们的卡。这些机制包括利率、各种奖励优惠以及一些潜在的罚款和相关条款。这些复杂的定价机制可能难以让消费者评估，并可能导致他们选择不如其他优惠有利的优惠。而且，信用卡优惠的诱惑可能会导致消费者为自己制造难以解决的财务问题。

Because credit card issuers receive fees from merchants every time one of their cards is used, they have a strong incentive to push for those cards to be used as many times as possible. They have been particularly aggressive in trying to get consumers to use their cards for small, everyday purchases. Using credit for everyday purchases, of course, can create financial problems for consumers if they are not careful. Unfortunately, card issuers can be less concerned about individuals’ financial problems due to the revenue those issuers earn from merchants.

由于信用卡发行商每次使用其卡时都会从商家那里收取费用，因此他们有强烈的动机推动这些卡尽可能多地被使用。他们尤其积极地试图让消费者将其卡用于小额、日常消费。当然，如果消费者不小心，将信用卡用于日常消费可能会给他们带来财务问题。不幸的是，由于发行商从商家那里获得的收入，发行商可能对个人的财务问题不太关心。

Though there are problems, consumers at least have the benefit of competition among different credit card issuers that try to get their business. That can lead to helpful offers. Merchants, however, do not have that benefit due to the way that the two dominant card networks bring together card issuers from across the country into their two networks.

尽管存在问题，消费者至少可以从不同信用卡发行商之间的竞争中受益，这些发行商试图争取他们的业务。这可能会带来有益的优惠。然而，由于两大主导卡网络将全国的卡发行商汇集到他们的两个网络中，商家却没有这种好处。

美国信用卡的核心问题在于，Visa 和 Mastercard 这两个最大的网络设定了发卡银行对每笔交易收取的刷卡费金额，并设定了这些交易发生的条款。所有这些发卡银行，尤其是那些拥有绝大多数信用卡市场份额的大银行，可以自行定价并相互竞争以争取商家的业务。这些发卡机构都以这种方式竞争消费者的业务。但是，他们拒绝为商家的业务竞争。所有发行带有 Visa 标志的卡的银行都同意向商家收取相同的网络固定费用。发行带有 Mastercard 标志的卡的银行也是如此。

There is no avoiding the destructiveness of these agreements not to compete on price. Merchants have no ability to refuse accepting payment from virtually all the banking institutions across the nation. That is in part because retail is incredibly competitive in the United States. There are many different types of merchants trying to out-compete each other on price and service for the business of the American consumer. If one of them stops taking these credit cards, the competitor across the street will take some of their business. So, merchants take the cards and the fees increase at dramatic rates. In fact, economists with the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank have studied these fees and found that, in light of the central fee-setting structure and the competitiveness of U.S. retail, swipe fees will increase to the point that retailers may go out of business.  That is the only effective brake on the steep rise on these fees.

无法避免这些不竞争价格协议的破坏性。商家几乎没有能力拒绝接受全国所有银行机构的付款。这部分是因为美国的零售业竞争非常激烈。许多不同类型的商家试图在价格和服务上相互竞争，以赢得美国消费者的业务。如果其中一个商家停止接受这些信用卡，街对面的竞争对手将会抢走他们的一些生意。因此，商家接受这些卡，费用以惊人的速度增加。事实上，堪萨斯城联邦储备银行的经济学家研究了这些费用，发现鉴于中央费用设定结构和美国零售业的竞争性，刷卡费将增加到零售商可能倒闭的地步。这是对这些费用急剧上升的唯一有效制约。

It is also important to note that the swipe fees banks charge merchants to accept their cards (the ones set by Visa and Mastercard) are not the same every time. In fact, they can vary dramatically. Visa and Mastercard set complex schedules of fee rates, and the fees vary based on the level of rewards associated with the card, the type of merchant accepting the card, the manner in which the card is accepted (online versus in-person and other aspects of acceptance) as well as, in some sectors, the card network’s view of the merchant’s level of security.  The fees for the most expensive cards can be about triple the amount of the fees for the least expensive cards for some merchants.

还需要注意的是，银行向商家收取的刷卡费（由 Visa 和 Mastercard 设定的）并不是每次都相同。事实上，它们可能会有很大差异。Visa 和 Mastercard 设定了复杂的费率表，费用会根据与卡相关的奖励水平、接受卡的商家类型、接受卡的方式（在线与亲自以及其他接受方面）以及在某些行业中，卡网络对商家安全级别的看法而有所不同。对于一些商家，最昂贵的卡的费用可能是最便宜卡费用的三倍左右。

In addition to the fee-setting, however, Visa and Mastercard impose a set of terms that further insulate those prices from the possibility of any competitive market forces keeping the fees in check. There are hundreds of pages of these terms and problems with them are detailed well in ongoing antitrust litigation that is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

然而，除了设定费用之外，Visa 和 Mastercard 还施加了一系列条款，进一步使这些价格免受任何竞争市场力量的影响，从而保持费用不变。这些条款有数百页，并且其中的问题被详细描述。在纽约东区美国地方法院正在进行的反垄断诉讼中表现良好。

There are a few of these terms that merit particular attention. One, of course, is the central price-setting engaged in by Visa and Mastercard noted above. Another is the so-called “honor all cards rule.” This “rule” is imposed by both Visa and Mastercard on merchants. It creates an all-or-nothing proposition for every merchant across the country and says that if a merchant wants to accept any Visa- (or Mastercard-) branded credit card, that merchant must take every credit card with that brand (and the same with debit cards). “Honor all cards” completely removes any possibility for a merchant to negotiate prices or terms with any bank and completely removes the incentive for any bank to try to negotiate prices or terms with any merchant.

这些术语中有几个值得特别关注。当然，其中之一是上文提到的 Visa 和 Mastercard 参与的中央定价。另一个是所谓的“接受所有卡规则”。这项“规则”是 Visa 和 Mastercard 对商家施加的。它为全国的每个商家创造了一种全有或全无的命题，并表示如果商家想接受任何 Visa（或 Mastercard）品牌的信用卡，该商家必须接受所有带有该品牌的信用卡（借记卡也是如此）。“接受所有卡”完全消除了商家与任何银行协商价格或条款的可能性，也完全消除了任何银行尝试与任何商家协商价格或条款的动机。

Removing those normal market incentives for price competition and negotiated deals is very significant. Because the fees are so much higher for some cards than for others, merchants very sensibly might want to accept some of them but not others (for fear of going out of business). But, they can’t make that choice. If they could, of course, banks issuing the most expensive cards might be inclined to cut their prices, but they don’t need to worry about that because Visa and Mastercard have removed the normal market dynamics from the playing field.

取消那些正常的市场激励措施以进行价格竞争和谈判交易是非常重要的。因为某些卡的费用比其他卡高得多，商家很可能会明智地选择接受其中一些而不是其他（因为担心破产）。但是，他们无法做出这种选择。当然，如果他们可以这样做，发行最昂贵卡的银行可能会倾向于降低价格，但他们不需要担心这一点，因为 Visa 和 Mastercard 已经从竞争场中移除了正常的市场动态。

Visa and Mastercard also put restrictions on banks to stop competition from creeping into the picture. They both prohibit banks from making any network that competes with them active on those banks’ credit cards.  That way, one hundred percent of the transactions on credit cards that have Visa enabled on them go through the Visa network (and the same is true for Mastercard).

Visa 和万事达卡也对银行施加限制，以防止竞争进入市场。它们都禁止银行在其信用卡上启用任何与它们竞争的网络。这样，启用了 Visa 的信用卡上的所有交易都通过 Visa 网络进行（万事达卡也是如此）。

These prohibitions are very similar to rules that were the subject of litigation the U.S. Department of Justice filed against Visa and Mastercard in 1998. The rule in question was known as the exclusionary rule. It prohibited banks that issued cards under Visa’s or Mastercard’s brands from issuing cards from any of their competitors (including companies such as American Express and Discover). The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of the Department of Justice in that case and the exclusionary rule is no longer permitted.  NACS filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission last fall discussing how Visa and Mastercard’s prohibitions against banks issuing credit cards with other networks on them violates the antitrust laws and harms competition. 

Visa and Mastercard also have a long history of restricting how merchants price their products to their customers. These restrictions formed a veil of secrecy around swipe fees that further insulated the fees from competitive market pressures. Some of those restrictive terms have been eroded through legal challenges over time. For example, the Department of Justice and seventeen states entered into a consent decree with Visa and Mastercard that became final in 2011 which prohibited those two networks from preventing merchants from offering their customers discounts for using less expensive payments. Prohibiting merchants from giving American customers discounts strikes directly at the heart of how competitive markets should work. But, that is just one in the long line of actions the two largest networks have taken to undercut competition in the credit card market.

Visa 和 Mastercard 也有着限制商家如何向客户定价的悠久历史。这些限制形成了一层关于刷卡费的秘密面纱，进一步使这些费用免受竞争市场压力的影响。随着时间的推移，其中一些限制性条款通过法律挑战被削弱。例如，司法部和十七个州与 Visa 和 Mastercard 达成了一项在 2011 年最终确定的同意令，禁止这两个网络阻止商家为使用更便宜支付方式的客户提供折扣。禁止商家为美国客户提供折扣直接打击了竞争市场应有的运作方式。但这只是这两个最大网络在信用卡市场削弱竞争的众多行动之一。

In fact, Visa and Mastercard’s fee- and term-setting have turned competition on its head. While competition normally causes businesses to try to keep prices low in order to attract market share, Visa and Mastercard don’t compete for merchants’ business. The honor all cards rule and lock-up of all the banks takes care of that. Instead, Visa and Mastercard only compete to attract banks to issue more of their cards. They do that by trying to push the swipe fees they set on behalf of those banks higher and higher. It is the opposite of what real competition does and demonstrates how the market is broken.

事实上，Visa 和 Mastercard 的费用和条款设定已经颠覆了竞争。通常情况下，竞争会促使企业努力保持低价以吸引市场份额，但 Visa 和 Mastercard 并不为商家的业务竞争。所有卡片通用规则和对所有银行的锁定解决了这个问题。相反，Visa 和 Mastercard 只竞争吸引银行发行更多的卡片。他们通过试图将代表这些银行设定的刷卡费推得越来越高来实现这一点。这与真正的竞争相反，并显示市场如何被破坏。

The major card networks have also taken actions that erode competition from smaller networks. One recent example of these anti-competitive activities was the subject of an opinion by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in litigation brought by Pulse, a debit network, against Visa. In that case, the Fifth Circuit found that Pulse’s claims that Visa had violated antitrust laws to squeeze Pulse out of the debit market should be decided by a jury, “And a reasonable jury could find that some of Visa’s volume-based agreements amount to exclusive-dealing contracts designed to squeeze Pulse out of the PIN-less transaction market.”  That was just the latest legal action raising troubling concerns about what the largest payment networks do to harm competition.

主要的卡网络也采取了削弱小型网络竞争的行动。最近一个例子是美国第五巡回上诉法院在 Pulse（一家借记网络）对 Visa 提起的诉讼中发表的意见。在该案中，第五巡回法院认为，Pulse 声称 Visa 违反反垄断法以将 Pulse 挤出借记市场的指控应由陪审团裁定，“而一个合理的陪审团可能会发现 Visa 的一些基于交易量的协议相当于旨在将 Pulse 挤出无 PIN 交易市场的独家交易合同。”这只是最新的法律行动，提出了对最大支付网络损害竞争行为的令人不安的担忧。

Visa has also sought to bolster its hold on the market and keep out innovative competitors through acquisition. Its attempt to acquire Plaid - a potential competitor in the debit market - led to a lawsuit from the Department of Justice to block the deal.  Plaid offers a potential alternative technology for consumers to access funds in their bank accounts to pay for things which "likely would drive down prices for online debit transactions, chipping away at Visa’s monopoly and resulting in substantial savings to consumers.  Visa wanted to block the innovation and cost savings that Plaid could bring to the market by acquiring it - similar to Visa’s past pattern of trying to block competition.  Acquisitions, exclusivity contracts and other moves have been used by Visa to protect its market power and block potential competition. All of this, of course, has been a detriment to the market, merchants, consumers, and the economy.

Visa 还试图通过收购来加强其对市场的控制并排除创新竞争对手。其试图收购 Plaid——一个在借记市场的潜在竞争对手——导致司法部提起诉讼以阻止该交易。Plaid 为消费者提供了一种潜在的替代技术，使其能够访问银行账户中的资金以支付费用，这“可能会降低在线借记交易的价格，削弱 Visa 的垄断地位并从而为消费者节省了大量费用。Visa 希望通过收购 Plaid 来阻止其可能带来的创新和成本节约——这类似于 Visa 过去试图阻止竞争的模式。Visa 通过收购、排他性合同和其他手段来保护其市场力量并阻止潜在竞争。所有这些当然对市场、商家、消费者和经济都是不利的。

Credit and debit card swipe fees are huge business and are growing at an alarming rate. Collectively, U.S. merchants paid $138 billion in fees to accept card payments last year.18 That was a huge jump from the $110 billion that merchants paid in 2020.19 That is on top of the fees nearly doubling in the decade between 2010 (when the fees were $64 billion) and 2020.20 And, it followed the decade between 2001 and 2010 when the fees more than tripled from $16 billion to $64 billion.21 The huge multiples by which the fees have grown seem impossible, but that is what happens when there is price-fixing in place of competition.

信用卡和借记卡刷卡费用是一笔巨大的业务，并且正在以惊人的速度增长。 总体而言，美国商家去年支付了1380亿美元的费用来接受信用卡支付。这比商家在2020年支付的1100亿美元相比是一个巨大的飞跃。这是在2010年（当时费用为640亿美元）和2020年之间的十年里几乎翻了一番。而且，继2001年至2010年的十年，费用从160亿美元增加了两倍多倍到640亿美元。费用增长的巨大倍数似乎是不可能的，但这就是当有固定价格而不是竞争时发生的事情。

In the convenience industry, recent fee increases have been even more dramatic. In 2021, the fees paid by convenience retailers to accept payment cards jumped by 26.5 percent.22 Not only that, but the rate of increase has been even higher thus far in 2022 – and that was even before Visa and Mastercard moved forward with rate increases in April that, combined with the rate increases that Visa publicly said it would delay last year amount to an additional $1.2 billion per year in additional fees.23 These increases are completely unsustainable.

在便利行业，最近的费用上涨更加剧烈。 2021年，便利店零售商为接受支付卡而支付的费用飙升了26.5%。不仅如此，2022年迄今为止，增长率甚至更高——甚至在Visa和万事达卡在4月提高利率之前，再加上Visa去年公开表示将推迟的利率增长，每年增加12亿美元的额外费用。23这些增长完全不可持续。

Even before these dramatic jumps, swipe fees, on average, were convenience retailers’ second-largest operating cost after labor. In fact, that is true for retailers in every sector. That means swipe fees are more than the average retailer pays for rent or utilities or for any other operating cost. Some convenience retailers have even reported that the fees are approaching their labor costs.

即使在这些剧烈的增长之前，刷卡费平均是便利店仅次于人工的第二大运营成本。事实上，这对每个行业的零售商都是如此。这意味着刷卡费超过了普通零售商支付的租金或水电费或任何其他运营成本。一些便利店甚至报告说，这些费用正在接近他们的人工成本。

One reason for these dramatic increases is the destructive interaction between swipe fees and inflation. The majority of the amount of credit card swipe fees are set as a percentage of the total amount of each transaction. That means swipe fees increase along with every dollar of inflation. And, those swipe fees act as an inflation multiplier forcing retailers to try to increase their revenues to keep up with the spiraling fees.During its last two earnings calls, in fact, Visa made clear that it is “a beneficiary of inflation,” and that inflation is “a positive for us.”  Most Americans and American businesses would not say the same of themselves.

这些急剧增长的一个原因是刷卡费和通货膨胀之间的破坏性互动。大部分信用卡刷卡费的金额是按每笔交易总金额的百分比设定的。这意味着刷卡费随着每一美元的增加而增加。通货膨胀。而且，这些刷卡费充当了通货膨胀的倍增器，迫使零售商试图增加收入以跟上不断上涨的费用。事实上，在最近两次财报电话会议中，Visa 明确表示它是“通货膨胀的受益者”，并且通货膨胀“对我们是有利的。”大多数美国人和美国企业不会这样说自己。

An area that has among the largest impacts for the convenience industry and for American consumers are gas prices. This industry sells about 80 percent of the gasoline used across the nation. Retailers, similar to their customers, like an ample supply of gasoline and low prices. That is because as gas prices rise, the margins retailers make actually get smaller. Competition in the market means that retailers cannot pass along their own increased wholesale costs as quickly as they pay those costs. At the same time that retailers’ margins are getting squeezed, however, their credit card fees are rising because they are a percentage of the total transaction amount. That means there have been many times during the past few months when retailers were paying more in swipe fees (often about 10 cents per gallon) than they were ultimately making on those sales. That makes no sense given the costs retailers incur and risks they take to maintain a site with underground storage tanks, transport fuel, and sell it to customers (often staying open 24 hours per day in the midst of a labor shortage and, in the past two years, a pandemic). Processing those transactions should not cost more than the profits that can be made after all of that effort.

对便利行业和美国消费者影响最大的领域之一是油价。该行业销售了全国约 80%的汽油。零售商和他们的顾客一样，希望有充足的汽油供应和低廉的价格。这是因为随着油价上涨，零售商的利润实际上会变小。市场竞争意味着零售商无法像支付批发成本那样迅速地将增加的成本转嫁给顾客。然而，当零售商的利润空间被压缩时，他们的信用卡手续费却在上升，因为手续费是总交易金额的一个百分比。这意味着在过去几个月中，零售商支付的刷卡费（通常约为每加仑 10 美分）往往比他们最终从这些销售中赚取的还要多。考虑到零售商为维护地下储罐、运输燃料并将其出售给顾客所承担的成本和风险（通常在劳动力短缺和过去两年的疫情中 24 小时营业），这没有道理。 处理这些交易的成本不应超过经过所有努力后可以获得的利润。

What is particularly troubling for many businesses, however, is that they are powerless to plan for or deal with these rising costs. They can take measures to keep other costs in check – installing more energy-efficient equipment, using a different supplier, and the like. But there is no dealing with swipe fees because of the competition problem noted above and the unpredictability of the increases. Businesses just don’t know how much the fees will go up. Even after new rates are announced it is difficult to predict how those rates will impact a merchant’s fees because the card networks have made the system so complex. GAO reported that Visa and MasterCard each had four credit card rate categories in 1991, but by 2009 Visa had 60 rate categories and MasterCard had 243.25 The numbers have grown since that time and that complexity helps obscure the consistent, large fee increases that merchants must bear.

然而，对许多企业来说，特别令人不安的是，他们无力计划或应对这些不断上升的成本。 他们可以采取措施来控制其他成本——安装更节能的设备，使用不同的供应商等。 但由于上述竞争问题和增长的不可预测性，没有处理刷卡费。 企业只是不知道费用会增加多少。 即使在宣布新费率后，也很难预测这些费率将如何影响商家的费用，因为卡网络使系统变得如此复杂。 GAO报告称，1991年，Visa和MasterCard各有四个信用卡费率类别，但到2009年，Visa有60个费率类别，万事达卡有243.25个。自那时以来，数字一直在增长，这种复杂性有助于掩盖商家必须承担的持续、大幅费用增长。

It is worth noting that the fees increase even when Visa and Mastercard do not “raise” them. As noted, inflation is one reason that happens. Another reason is that the banks issuing cards simply push higher fee cards into the market. That is true for their new and existing customers. Many cardholders receive notification from their bank that they now have a different level of rewards or other perks. It might not be clear to the cardholder why that is, but it is not a mystery to merchants - it means the merchant must pay higher swipe fees. By systematically moving cardholders to more expensive cards, banks can drive up swipe fees without Visa and Mastercard changing their rate schedules at all.

值得注意的是，即使 Visa 和 Mastercard 没有“提高”费用，费用也会增加。如前所述，通货膨胀是导致这种情况的一个原因。另一个原因是发卡银行只是将更高费用的卡推向市场。这对他们的新客户和现有客户都是如此。许多持卡人收到银行的通知，告知他们现在拥有不同级别的奖励或其他福利。持卡人可能不清楚原因，但这并不是一个商家的谜团 - 这意味着商家必须支付更高的刷卡费。通过系统地将持卡人转移到更昂贵的卡上，银行可以在 Visa 和万事达卡完全不改变费率表的情况下提高刷卡费。

Of course, merchants do not have visibility into the card issuing decisions that drive up their fees. Frankly, merchants have very little visibility into the price-setting engaged in by Visa and Mastercard. Merchants don’t receive direct communications of these changes from Visa and Mastercard. Those notifications go to banks and processors. Typically, when sent, those notifications are confidential so that they cannot be passed along to merchants. The price changes that can so dramatically impact merchants’ bottom lines become rumors in the marketplace until they are sprung on merchants with very little notice. The price increases that both Visa and Mastercard instituted just a couple of weeks ago followed this pattern of poor communication and notice. The lack of clarity is just another sign of how broken this market is.

当然，商家无法了解导致费用上升的发卡决策。坦率地说，商家对 Visa 和 Mastercard 的定价行为几乎没有了解。商家不会直接收到来自 Visa 和 Mastercard 的这些变更通知。这些通知会发送给银行和处理商。通常，这些通知是保密的，因此无法传递给商家。对商家利润产生重大影响的价格变动在市场上成为谣言，直到它们在很短的通知时间内突然降临到商家头上。Visa 和 Mastercard 在几周前实施的价格上涨就遵循了这种糟糕的沟通和通知模式。缺乏透明度只是这个市场多么混乱的另一个迹象。

Ultimately, of course, all of us pay for these overinflated swipe fees in the prices of the goods and services we buy. The fierce price competition in retail ensures this. Retail profit margins are notoriously low. As of January of this year, for example, net profit margins for general retailers were 2.65 percent.26 For convenience stores, those margins were 2.47 percent.27 For grocers and other food retailers, those margins were even narrower – 1.11 percent.28 With those margins, which are around or below the level of swipe fees these businesses pay, those fees must be passed on to consumers or retailers would go out of business.

当然，归根结底，我们所有人都在我们购买的商品和服务价格中支付这些过度膨胀的刷卡费用。 零售业激烈的价格竞争确保了这一点。 零售利润率低得出了名。 例如，截至今年1月，普通零售商的净利润率为2.65%。对于便利店，这些利润率为2.47%。对于杂货店和其他食品零售商来说，这些利润率甚至更窄——1.11%。28由于这些利润率约为或低于这些企业支付的刷卡费水平，这些费用必须转给消费者，否则零售商将倒闭。

It is worth noting that while retailers’ margins are notoriously thin, banks’ and credit card networks’ margins are very large. The money center banks that dominate credit card issuing have net margins of 32.61 percent.29 Visa’s net profit margin as of the end of 2021 was 51.59 percent and Mastercard’s was 46 percent.30 All of those margins are instructive as to the relative competitiveness of these sectors. No other industry sector reported on by NYU had net profit margins as large as the money center banks, and it is likely that none would dare dream of margins at the level of Visa’s and Mastercard’s.

值得注意的是，尽管零售商的利润率通常很低，但银行和信用卡网络的利润率却非常高。主导信用卡发行的货币中心银行的净利润率为 32.61%。截至 2021 年底，Visa 的净利润率为 51.59%，而万事达卡为 46%。所有这些利润率都说明了这些行业的相对竞争力。纽约大学报告的其他行业中，没有一个行业的净利润率能与货币中心银行相媲美，可能也没有哪个行业敢梦想达到 Visa 和万事达卡的利润率水平。

The current system fools consumers by hiding the large interchange fees that are built into the cost of their purchases. To quote one of my fellow witnesses today, Ed Mierzwinski of U.S. PIRG, "Interchange fees are hidden charges paid by all Americans, regardless of whether they use credit, debit, checks or cash. These fees impose the greatest hardship on the most vulnerable consumers - the millions of American consumers without credit cards or banking relationships. These consumers basically subsidize credit card usage by paying inflated prices prices inflated by the billions of dollars of anticompetitive interchange fees. And unfortunately,those credit card interchange fees continue to accelerate, because there is nothing to restrain Visa and MasterCard from charging consumers and merchants more. In addition, over the years, consumer groups including the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer’s Union, and Consumer Action have all submitted Congressional testimony criticizing the current system of swipe fees because it is not fair to consumers.

目前的制度通过隐藏购买成本中内置的巨额交换费来愚弄消费者。 引用我今天的一位证人，美国PIRG的Ed Mierzwinski的话，“交换费是所有美国人支付的隐藏费用，无论他们使用信用卡、借记卡、支票还是现金。 这些费用给最脆弱的消费者带来了最大的困难——数百万没有信用卡或银行关系的美国消费者。 这些消费者基本上通过支付被数十亿美元的反竞争交换费所膨胀的价格来补贴信用卡的使用。 不幸的是，这些信用卡交换费用继续加速，因为没有什么能阻止Visa和MasterCard向消费者和商家收取更多费用。那些信用卡交换费继续加速增长，因为没有什么能阻止 Visa 和 MasterCard 向消费者和商家收取更多费用。此外，多年来，包括美国消费者联合会、消费者联盟和消费者行动在内的消费者团体都向国会提交了证词，批评当前的刷卡费系统对消费者不公平。

In addition, the European Commission has found that interchange fees harm consumers. In December 2007, the Commission found MasterCard’s multilateral interchange fee illegal and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that interchange "inflated the cost of card acceptance by retailers without leading to any advantage for consumers or retailers. On the contrary, consumers foot the bill, as they risk paying twice for payment cards. Once through annual fees to their bank. And a second time through inflated retail prices …  Kroes concluded that MasterCard’s interchange “acts like a ‘tax on consumption’ paid not only on card users but also by consumers using cash and cheques.”

此外，欧盟委员会发现，跨行费用损害了消费者的利益。2007 年 12 月，委员会认定万事达卡的多边跨行费用非法，竞争事务专员内莉·克罗斯表示，跨行费用“抬高了零售商接受卡片的成本，却没有给消费者或零售商带来任何好处。相反，消费者承担了费用，因为他们有可能为支付卡支付两次费用。一次是通过向银行支付的年费。第二次是通过抬高的零售价格……克罗斯总结道，万事达卡的跨行费用“就像一种‘消费税’，不仅由卡用户支付，也由使用现金和支票的消费者支付。”

One of the most troubling aspects of the high swipe fees imposed by the broken credit card market is the way they impact low-income Americans. The fees get baked into the prices of goods and services with very few exceptions in part due to the longtime pricing constraints imposed by Visa and Mastercard. So, those who do not have or cannot qualify for credit cards pay the cost of these fees as well - as do cardholders with basic cards that don’t carry rewards. In 2009, the Hispanic Institute published a paper showing how payment card swipe fees and rewards systematically transferred wealth from low income to high income individuals. 

高额刷卡费对低收入美国人的影响是破碎的信用卡市场中最令人不安的方面之一。这些费用被纳入商品和服务的价格中，几乎没有例外，部分原因是 Visa 和万事达卡长期以来施加的定价限制。因此，那些没有或无法获得信用卡的人也要承担这些费用的成本——持有不带奖励的基本卡的持卡人也是如此。2009 年，西班牙裔研究所发表了一篇论文，显示支付卡刷卡费和奖励如何系统地将财富从低收入人群转移到高收入人群。

A working paper published by Boston Federal Reserve economists came to the same conclusion: that swipe fees combined with rewards programs amount to a regressive system in which low-income Americans subsidize high-income Americans.  This disproportionate negative effect on low-income consumers is particularly unfair.

波士顿联邦储备经济学家发表的一份工作论文得出了相同的结论：刷卡费与奖励计划相结合构成了一种累退制度，低收入美国人为高收入美国人提供补贴。这种对低收入消费者的不成比例的负面影响尤其不公平。

An updated study was just released by the Hispanic Leadership Fund. That study found: 

低收入的美国人正在把钱输给高收入的人。

American families earning less than $75,000 per year send a total of $3.5 billion to families earning more than $75,000 per year

年收入低于75,000美元的美国家庭向年收入超过75,000美元的家庭共向35亿美元

More than $1.9 billion of that money goes into the pockets of those making more than $150,000 per year.

其中超过19亿美元的资金进入了那些年收入超过15万美元的人的口袋。

Families making less than $20,000 per year pay more than $1.2 billion of the $3.5 billion that gets transferred to higher income people”

年收入低于2万美元的家庭支付的35亿美元中超过12亿美元，这些资金转给高收入人群”

今天的信用卡计划对黑人家庭造成了不成比例的伤害。

The average American Black family pays nearly $60 per year to subsidize higher income people’s rewards through these fees

美国黑人家庭平均每年支付近60美元，通过这些费用补贴高收入者的奖励

Black families in the United States lose more than $1 billion each year from these transfers”

美国黑人家庭每年因这些转移而损失超过10亿美元”

目前的刷卡费结构推高了所有美国人的货架价格，无论你如何支付。

The study found that swipe fees cost some retailers between 17 and 19 percent of annual profit.

研究发现，刷卡费使一些零售商的年利润损失在 17%到 19%之间。

Annual variation in interchange costs drives profit up and down by about 4.5 percent for smaller stores. This added risk generates economic inefficiency, and the entire economy suffers from this unneeded risk."

交换成本的年度变化使小型商店的利润上下波动约 4.5%。这种额外的风险导致经济效率低下，整个经济因此不必要的风险而受到影响。

Those findings are staggering. Low income Americans should not be forced to pay for their wealthy neighbors’ airline tickets, but that is precisely what Visa and Mastercard’s anticompetitive practices cause.

这些发现令人震惊。低收入的美国人不应该被迫为富裕邻居的机票买单，但这正是 Visa 和 Mastercard 的反竞争行为所导致的。

Not only have fees increased dramatically and moved money from low-income to highincome Americans, but these fees change the nature of the credit card business in a way that hurts consumers. As Georgetown Law professor Adam Levitin observed in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the huge fee revenue the banks earn from credit card transactions taking place has created bad incentives. He testified, “The card industry’s business model is the heart of the problem and needs to change. Just as with subprime mortgages, the credit card business model creates a perverse incentive to lend indiscriminately and let people get into so much debt they can’t pay it back.” 

不仅费用大幅增加并将资金从低收入美国人转移到高收入美国人手中，而且这些费用以损害消费者的方式改变了信用卡业务的性质。正如乔治城大学法学教授亚当·莱维廷在众议院司法委员会作证时所指出的，银行从信用卡交易中获得的巨额费用收入产生了不良激励。他作证说：“信用卡行业的商业模式是问题的核心，需要改变。就像次级抵押贷款一样，信用卡商业模式产生了一种不良激励，促使银行不加选择地放贷，让人们陷入无法偿还的巨额债务。”

Others have clearly observed this trend as well. For example, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Julie Williams said in March 2005, "Today the focus for lenders is not so much on consumer loans being repaid, but on the loan as a perpetual earning asset . . . it’s not repayment of the amount of the debt that is the focus, but rather the income the credit relationship generates through periodic payments on the loan, associated fees, and cross-selling opportunities.  These changes mean that banks are less worried than they should be about consumers’ welfare. It should be in the interest of banks for consumers to do well and be able to pay back credit card loans. But the huge fee income the banks generate through interchange and other means gives them another incentive - milk consumers for all they are worth and don’t worry about the money getting paid back.

其他人也清楚地观察到了这一趋势。例如，代理货币监理署署长朱莉·威廉姆斯在 2005 年 3 月表示：“今天，贷款人的关注点不再是消费者贷款的偿还，而是贷款作为一个永久的盈利资产……关注的不是债务金额的偿还，而是通过贷款的定期支付、相关费用和交叉销售机会所产生的收入。这些变化意味着银行对消费者福利的担忧比应有的要少。银行应该关心消费者的利益，使他们能够偿还信用卡贷款。但银行通过交换费和其他方式产生的巨额费用收入使得给他们另一个激励——榨取消费者的价值，不用担心钱能否收回。

The bottom line is that abuse of consumers by banks will continue as long as they have the incentive to treat people that way. Interchange fees are the key incentive with which Congress has not yet dealt. The abuses of consumers and using credit cards as predatory lending vehicles will continue until something is done about interchange fees.

关键是，只要银行有动机这样对待消费者，对消费者的侵害就会继续。交换费是国会尚未处理的关键动机。在交换费问题得到解决之前，对消费者的侵害和将信用卡用作掠夺性贷款工具的行为将继续下去。

The credit card industry strenuously argues that if anything at all happens to reduce swipe fees, then other fees paid by consumers will increase and consumers will be in a worse position than they are today. This is false. In fact, the European Commission’s Directorates for Competition and Financial Services jointly conducted a comprehensive study into the European payment card industry in general, and Visa and MasterCard in particular. The Commission found no evidence to support the card systems’ arguments that the high fee levels associated with the existing interchange system benefit consumers. In particular, the Commission rejected arguments that lower interchange fees to merchants would result in higher fees to consumers:

信用卡行业强烈辩称，如果刷卡费有所减少，消费者支付的其他费用将会增加，消费者的处境将比现在更糟。这是错误的。事实上，欧盟委员会的竞争和金融服务总司联合对欧洲支付卡行业，特别是 Visa 和 MasterCard 进行了全面研究。委员会没有发现任何证据支持卡系统关于现有互换系统的高费用水平对消费者有利的论点。特别是，委员会驳斥了降低商户互换费会导致消费者费用增加的论点：

"There is no economic evidence for such a claim. Firstly, the inquiry’s data suggests that in most cases card issuers would remain profitable with very low levels of interchange fees or even without any interchange fees at all. Secondly, the international card networks have failed to substantiate the argument that lower interchange fee would have to be compensated with higher cardholder fees. The evidence gathered during the inquiry rather suggests that the pass-through of higher interchange fees to lower cardholder fees is small. Consumers already pay the cost of the interchange fee without knowing it. This cost is now hidden in the final retail price and is therefore non-transparent. 

支付不应导致所有这些负面结果。拥有金钱的目的是降低交易成本，使买卖更加高效。我们的信用卡系统则相反。与我们百年历史的纸质支票系统的比较具有启发性。没多久之前，这些支票的原件必须运送到全国各地的适当银行机构以清算支付。这是一种昂贵的做事方式。但值得注意的是，美联储禁止对支票收取相当于刷卡费（称为交换费）的费用。处理支票仍然有（并且仍然存在）成本，但系统运行高效，接受和处理支票的人能够决定如何开展业务以及如何最好地控制成本。

Electronic payments should be much more efficient than paper payments. The actual costs of handling electronic payments are indeed lower. But, the prices paid by all of society are much, much higher due to competition problems inflating the associated fees.

电子支付应该比纸质支付更高效。处理电子支付的实际成本确实更低。但是，由于竞争问题导致相关费用膨胀，整个社会支付的价格要高得多。

The United States is an outlier in the world in this area - and not in a good way. Swipe fee rates are higher in the United States than anywhere in the industrialized world.  This harms American retailers and consumers - disadvantaging them compared to the rest of the world. Just to take one example, merchants and consumers in China pay much lower rates than their American counterparts. 

These fees are stunting business growth and hurting efforts to hire more workers and expand operations. One study of this impact in 2010 concluded that without the higher prices caused by fees above and beyond costs plus a reasonable rate of return, consumers would have an additional billion to spend and the economy could add 242,000 jobs.  Of course, the fees have nearly tripled since that report was written. The lost economic growth during that time period is immense.

这些费用阻碍了业务增长，并损害了雇佣更多工人和扩大运营的努力。2010 年对这一影响的一项研究得出结论，如果没有超出成本加合理回报率的费用所导致的更高价格，消费者将有额外的 十亿美元可供支出，经济可以增加 242,000 个工作岗位。  当然，自那份报告撰写以来，费用几乎增加了三倍。那段时间的经济增长损失是巨大的。

The overinflated swipe fee rates cause other economic problems as well. The U.S. credit card system has the most fraud in the world.  These problems are related. The high fees reduce the economic incentives for the credit card industry to fight fraud - because they make money even with relatively high fraud rates and would have to spend money to make the system safer for all of us. And, not incidentally, much of the fraud on credit cards gets charged back to merchants so the credit card industry does not lose those funds - the merchants do.

过高的刷卡费率也会导致其他经济问题。美国的信用卡系统是世界上欺诈最多的。这些问题是相关的。高额费用降低了信用卡行业打击欺诈的经济激励——因为即使欺诈率相对较高，他们也能赚钱，而为了让系统对我们所有人更安全，他们不得不花钱。而且，顺便说一句，许多信用卡欺诈费用会被转嫁给商家，因此信用卡行业不会损失这些资金——商家会。

Rather than taking straightforward actions that have proven to be effective in fighting fraud, like requiring the entry of personal identification numbers (PINs) or using other means of authenticating the person making the transaction, the card networks have pushed most of the costs of fighting fraud onto merchants. The switch to chip cards in the United States is a primary example. While the vast majority of the world required PINs as part of that switch, Visa and Mastercard not only did not do that, but they threatened retailers that tried to require PINs with fines.43 Instead of the common-sense measure that had been successful around the world, merchants were forced to spend $30 billion to upgrade their point-of-sale equipment and software to make the transition to chips without the protection of PIN usage. And, for their trouble, many merchants were still required to pay more to cover fraud.

信用卡网络没有采取已被证明在打击欺诈方面有效的直接行动，例如要求输入个人识别号码（PIN）或使用其他方式对进行交易的人进行身份验证，而是将打击欺诈的大部分成本推给商家。 美国改用芯片卡就是一个主要的例子。 虽然世界上绝大多数人要求PIN码作为这种转换的一部分，但Visa和万事达卡不仅没有这样做，而且他们威胁试图要求PIN码的零售商处以罚款。商家被迫花费300亿美元升级他们的销售点设备和软件，以过渡到没有PIN使用保护的芯片，而不是在世界各地取得成功的常识性措施。 而且，对于他们的麻烦，许多商人仍然被要求支付更多费用来掩盖欺诈。

In fact, a 2019 report found that the card networks use their positions in setting card security standards to entrench their own market share at the expense of focusing on card security and fraud protection. They do this through their control of a standard-setting body called EMVCo. According to the report, "Our research reveals an insidious pattern in which the card companies use EMVCo as a tool to maximize their share of transaction volumes: when the card companies feel threatened by competitive pressures or economic challenges, they - or EMVCo supporting their strategies - assume responsibility for the definition of a standard, which results in technical specifications that only benefit the card companies, not the U.S. payments industry at large.  Security standards should be made to protect against fraud, not to secure market share for already-dominant companies.

事实上，2019 年的一份报告发现，卡网络利用其在设定卡安全标准中的地位来巩固自己的市场份额，而不是专注于卡安全和防欺诈保护。他们通过控制一个名为 EMVCo 的标准制定机构来实现这一点。根据报告，“我们的研究揭示了一种隐蔽的模式，即卡公司利用 EMVCo 作为工具来最大化其交易量份额：当卡公司感受到竞争压力或经济挑战时，他们——或支持其战略的 EMVCo——承担起定义标准的责任，这导致了仅对卡公司有利的技术规范，而不是整个美国支付行业。安全标准应该用来防止欺诈，而不是为已经占主导地位的公司确保市场份额。

The large amounts of fraud on U.S. credit cards add costs to the economy. All of us must pay for that as well as swipe fees. The collective price tag for all of these inefficiencies is far higher than it should be. The United States has the largest economy in the world and should have the most effective and cost-efficient payment system. It doesn’t. That should change.

美国信用卡上的大量欺诈增加了经济成本。我们所有人都必须为此以及刷卡费买单。所有这些低效的集体代价远高于应有的水平。美国拥有世界上最大的经济体，应该拥有最有效和成本效益最高的支付系统。但事实并非如此。这应该改变。

As noted, anti-competitive behavior on the part of the major card networks causes serious problems for merchants, consumers, and the U.S. economy. Because the card networks cannot justify their actions and do not want to defend them, they typically try to distract any focus on their activities with complaints about the reforms Congress and the Federal Reserve put in place more than a decade ago to deal with anti-competitive activity in the debit card market. These arguments are a distraction, as well as factually wrong, and the Committee should not let the card networks try to distract its attention with those points - particularly when legislative attempts to derail those reforms have repeatedly failed over many years.

如前所述，主要卡网络的反竞争行为对商家、消费者和美国经济造成了严重问题。由于卡网络无法为其行为辩护且不愿为其辩护，他们通常试图通过抱怨国会和联邦储备委员会十多年前为应对借记卡市场的反竞争活动而实施的改革来分散对其活动的关注。这些论点不仅是分散注意力，而且在事实上是错误的，委员会不应让卡网络用这些观点来分散其注意力——尤其是在多年来立法试图破坏这些改革的努力屡屡失败的情况下。

Nonetheless, the section below addresses many of the most often repeated myths that the credit card industry raises in order to ensure that you actually have the facts before you on these claims.

尽管如此，下面的部分解决了许多信用卡行业经常重复的神话，以确保您在这些说法面前确实掌握事实。

- 消费者和企业从借记卡改革中受益

Debit reform authored by Senator Durbin, which was enacted in 2010 and took effect in 2011, has been helpful in curtailing debit swipe fee rates and providing competition among networks.46 One report showed that debit reform saved consumers $5.86 billion in 2012 alone -the first year the reforms were in effect.47 That was nearly 70 percent of the overall savings from debit reform that year with merchants saving an additional $2.64 billion.48 Collectively, these savings supported more than 37,000 jobs49 – a significant economic stimulus.

借记卡改革由参议员Durbin撰写，于2010年颁布，并于2011年生效，有助于降低借记卡刷卡费率和提供网络之间的竞争。一份报告显示，仅在2012年，借记卡改革就为消费者节省了58.6亿美元，这是改革生效的第一年。这是当年借记卡改革总节省的近70%，商家额外节省了26.4亿美元。总体而言，这些节省支持了超过37,000个工作岗位——这是一个重大的经济刺激。

In addition, Moody’s Investor Service has reported that debit reform savings have shielded consumers from higher prices that would have resulted from increases in other operating costs for businesses such as transportation and fuel costs. The report says, "As merchant acquirers pass on debit fee savings to retailers, we believe retailers will use them to help shield customers from the impact of these other rising costs.  The report also noted, “While on the surface it would be easy to presume that retailers would benefit from a reduced debit interchange fee, we do not expect retailers to see a material improvement in their earnings due to the Durbin Amendment.”

此外，穆迪投资者服务公司报告称，借记卡改革节省使消费者免受因企业其他运营成本（如运输和燃料成本）增加而导致的更高价格的影响。报告称：“随着商户收单机构将借记卡费用节省转嫁给零售商，我们相信零售商将利用这些节省来帮助保护客户免受其他成本上涨的影响。” 报告还指出，“虽然表面上很容易认为零售商会从降低的借记卡交换费中受益，但我们不期望零售商因《德宾修正案》而在收益上有实质性改善。”

The Moody’s report is supported by analysis of how pricing moved following the implementation of debit reform. The data shows that there was inflation in the U.S. economy in the years after debit reform was implemented. Cost increases, as reflected in the Producer Price Index for retail trade industries, rose 9.4 percent from the time reform went into effect in October 2011 through the end of 2016, while price increases to consumers, reflected in the Consumer Price Index, increased only 4.3 percent.  That is a large spread between the higher costs that merchants had to pay for the goods they sold and the prices that they charged consumers. Those numbers demonstrate clearly that merchants shielded their customers from the majority of the cost increases the merchants themselves faced. And, that experience has held true even during the past year with increased inflation. During 2021, the Producer Price Index rose by 9.7 percent while the Consumer Price Index rose by 7 percent. 

Retail profit margins show the same pattern. Those margins did not grow following debit reform. In fact, in the grocery industry, pretax profit margins in the two years prior to debit reform were 2.3 percent - and following debit reform those margins fell to 2.1 percent (in 2012) and 1.9 percent (in 2013). 

This data reconfirms the intensely competitive nature of U.S. retail. It is very clear that savings from debit reform (and more) have been consistently passed along from merchants to consumers in the form of prices that are significantly lower than what consumers would have been forced to pay in the absence of those reforms.

这些数据再次确认了美国零售业的激烈竞争性质。很明显，借记卡改革（及其他改革）带来的节省一直以显著低于消费者在没有这些改革的情况下被迫支付的价格的形式，从商家传递给消费者。

Anyone who believes free markets work would need to recognize that cost savings to retail businesses help hold down prices to consumers - unless they believe that there is a market failure in the retail sector of the economy. Of course, there is not. Retail is one of the most competitive sectors of the U.S. economy and has been for decades. Without a market failure, there is no question that reduced costs pass-through into lower prices. By arguing otherwise, it makes it sound as though the credit card industry has lived with centralized price-setting so long that they have forgotten how real competitive markets work.

任何相信自由市场有效的人都需要认识到，零售企业的成本节约有助于降低消费者的价格——除非他们认为经济的零售部门存在市场失灵。当然，事实并非如此。零售业是美国经济中竞争最激烈的行业之一，并且已经持续了几十年。在没有市场失灵的情况下，毫无疑问，降低的成本会转化为更低的价格。相反的论点听起来好像信用卡行业已经在集中定价中生活了太久，以至于他们忘记了真正的竞争市场是如何运作的。

The credit card industry likes to point to a report released by the Richmond Federal Reserve to try to disprove consumers’ clear benefits from debit reform. The problem is that, in talking about that report, they never mention the cautionary notes that the study’s authors themselves included in the report - which make clear it should not be used to prove the point for which the credit card industry tried to use it. First, the report made clear they did not look at actual costs and prices - it was just an opinion survey.  Second, the survey sample was small and could have been biased by getting responses primarily from those dissatisfied with the way the Fed wrote its regulation. Finally, it is worth noting what may be obvious given today’s economic environment. Inflation is always present and matters. The actual data shows that merchants held prices down as their costs increased. That is real consumer savings. But a survey that asks whether prices were reduced would not get that information.

信用卡行业喜欢引用里士满联邦储备银行发布的一份报告，试图反驳消费者从借记卡改革中获得的明显好处。问题是，在谈论这份报告时，他们从未提及报告作者自己在报告中包含的警示说明——这明确表明不应将其用于证明信用卡行业试图使用的观点。首先，报告明确表示他们没有查看实际成本和价格——这只是一个意见调查。其次，调查样本很小，可能因为主要从对美联储法规不满的人那里获得回应而存在偏见。最后，值得注意的是，鉴于当今的经济环境，这可能是显而易见的。通货膨胀始终存在且重要。实际数据显示，商家在成本增加时压低了价格。这是真正的消费者节省。但询问价格是否降低的调查不会获得这些信息。

- 借记改革后免费支票增加

The credit card industry like to claim that consumers had fewer options for free checking accounts following debit reform, but their claims are demonstrably wrong. At the outset, it should be noted that the banking industry has admitted that “free” checking is a fallacy, "Customers never had free checking accounts. They always paid for it in other ways, sometimes with penalty fees."55

信用卡行业喜欢声称，在借记卡改革后，消费者在免费支票账户方面的选择减少了，但他们的说法显然是错误的。首先，应注意银行业已承认“免费”支票是一种谬论，“客户从未拥有过免费支票账户。他们总是以其他方式支付，有时是通过罚款。”

In addition to Bank of America’s doubts about free checking ever having existed, it should be noted that the banking industry rapidly got rid of many free checking account offerings in the years before debit reform ever took effect. First, the banking industry blamed the financial crisis as the reason why they had to take away free checking and charge consumers higher fees. Then, the industry pivoted and started blaming overdraft regulations for their decisions to increase checking account fees.  In fact, some even had the temerity to suggest that they had to increase checking fees because they couldn’t make the same money from risky mortgages anymore. 

除了美国银行对免费支票账户是否曾经存在的怀疑之外，还应该注意到，在借记卡改革生效之前的几年里，银行业迅速取消了许多免费支票账户的服务。首先，银行业将金融危机归咎于他们不得不取消免费支票账户并向消费者收取更高费用的原因。然后，该行业转而开始将其增加支票账户费用的决定归咎于透支法规。事实上，有些人甚至厚颜无耻地暗示，他们不得不提高支票费用，因为他们无法再从高风险抵押贷款中赚取同样的钱。

All of these various excuses for the steep drop in free checking offerings were made long before debit reform came into being. The litany of excuses was summed up well in a 2011 article written when banks were blaming debit reform for their increases in checking fees - remarkably, doing this even before debit reform had ever taken effect - “The pattern is getting old and weary.Banks will raise checking fees whenever and wherever they think they can get away with it. And they will blame any convenient development for their choices. 

在借记卡改革实施之前，所有这些关于免费支票服务大幅减少的各种借口就已经出现了。2011 年有一篇文章很好地总结了这些借口，当时银行将支票费用的增加归咎于借记卡改革——值得注意的是，这种做法甚至在借记卡改革生效之前就已经开始了——“这种模式已经变得陈旧和疲惫。”只要他们认为可以逃避责任，银行就会随时随地提高支票费用。而且他们会将任何便利的发展归咎于他们的选择。

This background matters because the credit card industry typically relies on two fatally flawed studies to try to show that reductions in free checking that came before debit reform reductions they blamed on the financial crisis and limits on overdraft fees - were actually caused by debit reform. These studies take January 2009 as the measuring point for free checking prior to debit reform even though those reforms did not come into effect until October 2011, nearly two full years later. And, they pushed these studies onto the Government Accountability Office which cited them in a recent report without recognizing that the timing of the studies meant that the studies were blaming debit reform for things that happened prior to reform coming into effect. 

The number of checking accounts without monthly fees fell by 11 percentage points just from 2009 to 2010 - still a year before debit reform.  But, by counting the remarkably swift and steep reduction in the number of free checking accounts that occurred during the financial crisis and blaming that on debit reform (which came later), these studies magically find that debit reform reduced free checking. It didn’t.

从 2009 年到 2010 年，没有月费的支票账户数量下降了 11 个百分点——这仍然是在借记卡改革之前的一年。  但是，通过计算在金融危机期间发生的免费支票账户数量的显著迅速和急剧减少，并将其归咎于借记卡改革（后者发生在之后），这些研究神奇地发现借记卡改革减少了免费支票账户。事实并非如此。

Banking industry data demonstrates that free checking increased from the time debit reform went into effect at least for its first few years in operation. The ABA reported that 61 percent of banks had free checking in 2014 which compares favorably to the 50 percent of banks with free checking that the ABA reported in 2010 and the 39 percent of large banks that Moebs Services reported offered free checking two months prior to debit reform taking effect. 

- 如果竞争进入信用卡领域，奖励不会结束（天也不会塌下来）

The credit card industry consistently argues that any reforms to the current credit card market will end credit card rewards. In fact, they have spread advertisements all over the Internet depicting Senator Durbin as a cartoonish figure and alleging that he wants to end credit card rewards. That is remarkable given that neither Senator Durbin nor any other Senator has to date proposed legislation to reform the competition problems with credit cards. You might think that the credit card industry would want to review any such proposal and analyze its effects before giving a reasoned evaluation of its impact - but you would be wrong. The industry clearly prefers insult to reasoned debate. And, of course, the credit card industry wants to warn other Senators that they could be the subject of its ridicule if they have the temerity to support potential reforms.

信用卡行业始终认为，对当前信用卡市场的任何改革都将终结信用卡奖励。事实上，他们已经在互联网上散布了广告。将杜宾参议员描绘成一个卡通人物，并声称他想结束信用卡奖励。这很了不起，因为到目前为止，杜宾参议员或任何其他参议员都没有提出立法来改革信用卡的竞争问题。你可能会认为信用卡行业会希望审查任何此类提案并分析其影响，然后再对其影响进行合理评估——但你错了。该行业显然更喜欢侮辱而不是理性辩论。当然，信用卡行业希望警告其他参议员，如果他们有支持潜在改革的勇气，他们可能会成为其嘲笑的对象。

The credit card industry resorts to these tactics because the facts are not on its side. The nation with the longest track record of credit card fee reforms is Australia. After more than a decade under reforms there, the Reserve Bank of Australia has found, “The existence of significant credit card rewards programs suggests that credit card interchange fees are currently materially higher than is necessary for banks to provide payment cards with credit functionality. The Bank’s 2013 Payments Cost Study shows that - for the average-size transaction for each payment method - the existence of the interest-free period and rewards means that the effective price paid by a cardholder to use a credit card is lower than that for a debit card, even though the resource costs are substantially higher.” 

信用卡行业之所以采用这些策略，是因为事实并不站在它们一方。澳大利亚是信用卡费用改革历史最长的国家。在那里经历了十多年改革后，澳大利亚储备银行发现，“信用卡奖励计划的存在表明，信用卡交换费目前远高于银行提供具备信用功能的支付卡所需的水平。银行2013年的支付成本研究表明——对于每种支付方式的平均交易，免息期和奖励的存在意味着，持卡人使用信用卡支付的有效成本低于使用借记卡的成本，尽管资源成本明显更高。”

When Australia acted, MasterCard said it would mean the end of the credit card system in that nation - arguing that there would be a “death spiral.”  They were wrong. More consumers use more cards for less than ever before in Australia. In fact, rather than Visa and MasterCard competing to raise interchange fees so that banks will issue more of their cards, they have had to give consumers what they really wanted - lower interest rates on their cards. This interest rate competition has benefitted consumers immensely. The only ones who don’t like it are Visa and MasterCard (and their member banks) because they don’t make as much on interchange fees and must now compete more thoroughly on the value they deliver to consumers. The Reserve Bank of Australia reviewed the interchange reforms instituted there and concluded, “Overall, consumers are benefiting from this greater competition and lower merchant costs . . . one group of consumers clearly better off are those who regularly borrow on their credit cards. They are now able to obtain a card with an interest rate of 10 to 13 per cent, rather than the 16 to 18 per cent payable on traditional cards. For many consumers the resulting savings can run into hundreds of dollars per year . . . Consumers who do not use credit cards at all are also benefiting from the reforms as they are paying lower prices for goods and services than would otherwise have been the case. For many years, these consumers have helped subsidise the generous reward points of the credit card issuers through paying higher prices for goods and services. The reforms have helped unwind some of this subsidy.” 

当澳大利亚采取行动时，MasterCard表示这将意味着该国信用卡体系的终结——并声称会出现“死亡螺旋”。他们错了。在澳大利亚，更多的消费者使用更多的信用卡，而支付的费用比以往任何时候都要低。事实上，Visa和MasterCard并没有像之前那样争相提高交换费，以便银行能发行更多的信用卡。相反，它们不得不向消费者提供他们真正想要的——更低的信用卡利率。这种利率竞争极大地惠及了消费者。唯一不喜欢这一点的是Visa和MasterCard（以及它们的成员银行），因为它们从交换费中赚得更少，现在必须在为消费者提供的价值上进行更激烈的竞争。澳大利亚储备银行回顾了该国实施的交换费改革，并得出结论：“总体而言，消费者从更激烈的竞争和较低的商户成本中受益……其中一类受益明显的是那些经常使用信用卡借款的消费者。他们现在能够获得年利率为10%到13%的卡，而不是传统信用卡上16%到18%的利率。对许多消费者来说，节省的费用每年可以达到几百美元……那些根本不使用信用卡的消费者也从改革中受益，因为他们为商品和服务支付的价格比以前低了。多年来，这些消费者通过为商品和服务支付更高的价格，间接补贴了信用卡发行方慷慨的奖励积分。改革帮助消除了部分这一补贴。”

Lower fees, competition, and other reforms in other countries have not stopped Visa and Mastercard from aggressively marketing their networks to banks around the world. It is clear that there is plenty of revenue in nations with far lower fees for the credit card business to be very profitable.

更低的费用、竞争和其他国家的其他改革并没有阻止 Visa 和 Mastercard 积极向全球银行推销他们的网络。显然，在费用低得多的国家，信用卡业务仍然可以非常盈利。

- Visa 和万事达卡在加油站的刷卡费上没有提供有意义的减免

Swipe fees have jumped by enormous amounts on motor fuel purchases during the past year. As noted, the convenience industry saw its fees rise by 26.5 percent in 2021 and are seeing more rapid increases this year. These large increases add a significant economic pressure to increase gas prices at the worst possible time. The card industry has tried to defend themselves from criticism for these rapidly rising fees by saying that they have capped swipe fees at $1.10 per fill-up. But they know that cap is largely ineffectual. The average amount of gas put in a car during a fill-up is 11.7 gallons.66 So, using the average credit card interchange rate of 2.22 percent, a cap of $1.10 does not impact what the merchant pays for that fill up until gas costs about $4.25 per gallon. Other than in California, even recent gas prices have only rarely reached that number.

在过去的一年里，购买汽车燃料的刷卡费用大幅上涨。 如前所述，便利行业在2021年的费用增长了26.5%，今年增长速度更快。 这些大幅增长增加了巨大的经济压力，迫使在最坏的时候提高天然气价格。 信用卡行业试图保护自己免受这些快速上涨费用的批评，称他们已将刷卡费上限为每次充值1.10美元。 但他们知道上限基本上无效。 加满期间，汽车的平均汽油量为11.7加仑。因此，使用2.22%的平均信用卡交换率，1.10美元的上限不会影响商家为加满油支付的费用，直到汽油价格约为每加仑4.25美元。 除了加利福尼亚州，即使是最近的汽油价格也很少达到这个数字。

Swipe fees are often near 10 cents per gallon on a fill-up today. That is simply too much for local retailers or their customers to bear.

如今，加油时的刷卡费通常接近每加仑 10 美分。这对于当地零售商或他们的客户来说实在是太高了。

- Visa 和万事达卡不需要为大型银行设定价格

One of the few ways that the credit card industry has tried to justify the centralized setting of prices by the networks for the banks that issue cards is by citing the large number of banks on each side of a credit card transaction. With thousands of banks issuing cards and thousands of banks and processors handling the merchant side of processing, they argue that it is too complicated and difficult for the prices of all those combinations to be negotiated in a free market.

信用卡行业试图为网络为发卡银行集中定价辩护的少数几种方式之一是引用信用卡交易中每一方的大量银行。由于有数千家银行发行卡片，还有数千家银行和处理商处理商户端的交易，他们认为在自由市场中协商所有这些组合的价格过于复杂和困难。

But, the research has found that the card industry’s protestations don’t fit the facts. Nicholas Economides of New York University has studied this and found that credit card issuing and, on the other side, acquiring/processing of credit card transactions is very concentrated among small numbers of banks and processors with large market shares. As a result, in 2009, he found that a mere 90 negotiated agreements would cover a full 72 percent of all Visa and Mastercard transaction volume.  That, of course, is very doable - and there has been significant additional concentration in both markets since then.  There is no reason why the largest banks couldn’t do business like other companies operating throughout the economy and negotiate their own pricing.

但是，研究发现，信用卡行业的抗议与事实不符。纽约大学的尼古拉斯·埃科诺米德斯对此进行了研究，发现信用卡的发行以及信用卡交易的收单/处理高度集中在少数拥有大量市场份额的银行和处理商中。因此，他在 2009 年发现，仅仅 90 项谈判协议就可以涵盖所有 Visa 和万事达卡交易量的 72%。当然，这是非常可行的——自那时以来，这两个市场的集中度都有显著增加。无法像其他在整个经济中运营的公司那样开展业务并协商自己的定价。

Economists have found that due to the market power of Visa and MasterCard, merchants have no real choice but to accept credit cards. While the credit card industry likes to say merchants have a choice, this argument would be like AT&T claiming in the 1980s that no one should worry about its monopoly because people could choose not to have a telephone. Accepting cards is essential for most businesses - as the U.S. Department of Justice has concluded. 

In fact, the Kansas City Federal Reserve studied this and concluded, “Only monopoly merchants who are facing an inelastic consumer demand may deny cards when the fee exceeds its transactional benefit. . . Merchant competition allows the network to set higher merchant fees. The network can always set higher merchant fees in more competitive markets. Moreover, in competitive markets the merchant fees in the long run may exceed the sum of the merchant’s initial margin and the merchant’s transactional benefit. . . . As long as the merchant fee does not exceed the level that gives merchants negative profits, merchants may have no choice but to continue accepting cards.”  The courts also agree that Visa and MasterCard both have market power which means they have the ability to raise their prices above what would be sustained in a competitive market. 

- 借记卡改革帮助小银行和信用社竞争

Currently, the way that credit card swipe fees are fixed disadvantages small banks and credit unions. Those institutions typically have higher costs than do large institutions (which, unlike small banks, often pay nothing to the credit card networks). Credit union representative John Blum, for example, testified on behalf of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions in 2010 and told the House Judiciary Committee: "Credit unions have a higher per-transaction cost for processing card payments. Community banks have similar disadvantages because of their relatively small size resulting, in many instances, in the need to outsource card operations.  By fixing fees for all banks at the same level, however, large banks have for years been guaranteed higher profit margins than their smaller competitors. Those large banks have used their advantage to aggressively market themselves to consumers. That is one of the reasons why the credit card market is more concentrated than the debit card market. Many consumers who have accounts and debit cards at small banks and credit unions receive credit card and other offers from large banks. The large banks take the small banks’ customers in this way on a regular basis - paid for by their excess interchange earnings. The result is that large banks have a bigger share of both the credit and debit card markets than their share of deposits. 

目前，信用卡刷卡费的固定方式对小银行和信用合作社不利。这些机构的成本通常高于大机构（与小银行不同，大机构通常无需向信用卡网络支付费用）。例如，信用合作社代表约翰·布卢姆在 2010 年代表全国联邦信用合作社协会作证，并告诉众议院司法委员会：“信用合作社在处理卡支付时每笔交易的成本更高。社区银行由于规模相对较小，面临类似的劣势，导致在许多情况下需要外包卡业务。然而，通过将所有银行的费用固定在同一水平，大银行多年来一直被保证比其较小的竞争对手获得更高的利润率。这些大银行利用其优势积极向消费者推销自己。这是信用卡市场比借记卡市场更集中的原因之一。许多消费者谁在小型银行和信用合作社拥有账户和借记卡的人会收到大型银行的信用卡和其他优惠。大型银行通过这种方式定期吸引小型银行的客户——由其过多的交换收入支付。结果是，大型银行在信用卡和借记卡市场的份额比其存款份额更大。

Debit reforms have helped to level the playing field. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve published a study on the impact of debit reform on small financial institutions in February 2016. The study found that after reform, “the volume of transactions conducted with cards issued by exempt banks grew faster than it did for large banks.”  The study concluded that "the evidence does not support the claim that competitive forces have effectively imposed the interchange fee ceiling on small banks. 

借方改革有助于公平竞争。 2016年2月，费城联邦储备委员会发表了一份关于借记改革对小型金融机构影响的研究报告。 研究发现，改革后，“使用豁免银行发行的卡进行的交易量比大型银行的增长更快。” 该研究得出结论，“证据不支持竞争力量有效地对小银行施加了交换费上限的说法。

The Credit Union Times has reported that debit reform created “a powerful way for credit unions to accumulate market share” and “what some say is a huge opportunity for credit unions.”77 According to Texas Trust President and CEO Jim Minge, debit reforms created “…a huge opportunity for credit unions like the Mansfield, Texas Trust Credit Union and everybody else below the $10 billion threshold…” Debit swipe fee reform “applies only to financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets, which has created a huge opportunity for credit unions – especially those that want to attract millennials.”

据《信用社时报》报道，借记改革为“信用社积累市场份额创造了一种强大的方式”，“有人说这是信用社的巨大机会。” 据德克萨斯信托公司总裁兼首席执行官Jim Minge称，借记卡改革为“......曼斯菲尔德、德克萨斯信托信用社和100亿美元门槛以下的其他人等信用社创造了巨大的机会......”借记费用改革“仅适用于资产超过100亿美元的金融机构，这为信用社创造了巨大的机会——特别是那些想吸引千禧一代的人。”

Centralized price-setting of credit card swipe fees harms smaller financial institutions. More competition in the market would help give them additional levers to try to compete with the largest banks including by allowing them to negotiate among the different networks. 

- 借记卡改革和网络竞争增强了防欺诈保护

Competition pushes businesses to provide lower prices and better service. That has been the impact that debit reform brought to payments a decade ago. By prohibiting exclusivity arrangements so that more than one network had to be available to handle debit card transactions, the market changed so that networks needed to find a way to improve their offerings. One way they did that was with enhanced protections against fraud. As soon as the debit reforms came into effect, the networks started introducing full end-to-end encryption of data.  They also accelerated the transition to chip cards in the United States. 

竞争促使企业提供更低的价格和更好的服务。这是十年前借记卡改革对支付带来的影响。通过禁止排他性安排，使得必须有多个网络可用于处理借记卡交易，市场发生了变化，网络需要找到改进其服务的方法。他们这样做的一种方式是加强防欺诈保护。借记卡改革一生效，网络就开始引入数据的全端到端加密。 他们还加快了美国向芯片卡的过渡。 

The credit card industry sometimes argues that high swipe fees are needed to cover fraud costs, but this is not the case – as is clear from the fact that fraud is much lower in nations with much lower swipe fee rates. Economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have found that fraud costs are not a justification for over-inflated interchange fees. They wrote, “Card organizations have often argued that the reason why they impose proportional fees stems from the cost they bear from their ‘payment guarantee’ service which insures merchants against customers who pay with cards without having sufficient funds. We argue that the cost of fraud and insufficient funding is negligible compared with fees at the range of 1% to 3% commonly imposed by brand name cards. For example, industry studies show that the average net fraud losses are around 0.05% for signature debit cards, which do not extend credit to card users.”82 And, as noted above, the majority of fraud is paid by merchants, not banks.

信用卡行业有时会争辩说，需要高额刷卡费用来支付欺诈费用，但事实并非如此——从刷卡费率低得多的国家欺诈率要低得多的事实可以看出。 堪萨斯城联邦储备银行的经济学家发现，欺诈成本不是过度夸大交换费的理由。 他们写道：“信用卡组织经常争辩说，他们征收比例费用的原因源于他们从'付款保证'服务中承担的成本，该服务为商家提供保险，防止在没有足够资金的情况下使用卡付款的客户。 我们认为，与名牌卡通常收取的1%至3%的费用相比，欺诈和资金不足的成本可以忽略不计。 例如，行业研究表明，签名借记卡的平均净欺诈损失约为0.05%，这些卡不向卡用户提供信用额度。” 而且，如上所述，大多数欺诈是由商家支付的，而不是银行支付的。

The swipe fee system on debit cards prior to reforms created disincentives to the card industry taking fraud protection more seriously. Because the fees were much higher than losses from fraud, financial institutions were not highly motivated to make changes to cut down that fraud. A June 2011 Consumer Reports article pointed out these problems. It noted that thieves could “easily and cheaply” copy U.S. debit card data that is usually stored unencrypted in a magnetic stripe on the back of the card. According to the article, “The U.S. and some nonindustrialized countries in Africa are among the only nations still relying on magstripe payment cards, which came into wide use in the 1970’s.” 

A representative from the New York Police Department explained in the Consumer Reports piece that the NYPD had "recommended to several of the large financial institutions that the biggest deterrent to skimming would be using the kind of cards that are issued in Europe and Canada with a chip that makes them pretty much impossible to skim.  The article noted that financial institutions had been reluctant to do that due to their large card revenues. After debit reform, however, the card industry had newfound motivation to reduce fraud and pushed the transition to chip cards - though, unfortunately, they failed to push PIN usage as they had in other parts of the world.

纽约警察局的一位代表在《消费者报告》文章中解释说，纽约警察局曾“建议几家大型金融机构，防止盗刷的最大威慑力是使用欧洲和加拿大发行的带芯片的卡，这种卡几乎不可能被盗刷。  文章指出，金融机构由于其庞大的卡收入而不愿这样做。然而，改革使得信用卡行业有了减少欺诈的新动力，并推动了芯片卡的转型——但不幸的是，他们未能像在世界其他地区那样推动使用 PIN 码。

- 商家承担的信用卡欺诈损失多于银行

While the card industry often talks about a “payment guarantee,” merchants are not guaranteed payment on credit or debit card transactions. In fact, merchants are forced to absorb the majority of the cost of fraudulent card transactions. When the merchant is forced to pay for the fraud, this is called a “chargeback.” It means that the money the merchant was supposed to receive on the transaction is taken away (in other words, charged back). This can happen to a merchant without notice even months after the transaction takes place.

虽然信用卡行业经常谈论“支付保证”，但商家并不能保证信用卡或借记卡交易的付款。事实上，商家被迫承担大部分欺诈性卡交易的成本。当商家被迫为欺诈买单时，这被称为“退款”。这意味着商家本应在交易中收到的钱被收回（换句话说，被退回）。这种情况可能在交易发生几个月后，甚至没有通知商家就发生。

The Federal Reserve has collected data on debit card fraud every two years since debit reform was passed. Its 2019 data shows that merchants covered 56.3 percent of debit card fraud while card issuing banks only covered 35.4 percent.  The picture is similar for credit cards as merchants absorb most fraud losses - particularly since Visa and Mastercard implemented a liability shift to push chip card usage which pushed a significant share of fraud onto merchants. In fact, the Federal Reserve has reported that the merchant share of fraud on dual message debit cards (processed in similar fashion to credit cards) is more than 60 percent. 

Of course, all of the fraud chargebacks merchants must pay are on top of the swipe fees they pay. Those swipe fees amount to a prepayment of all fraud charges (and much more) to card-issuing banks. Merchants should not have to prepay for fraud and they should not have to pay when the fraud happens in addition to prepaying for it. They also shouldn’t have to hear about the great “payment guarantee” they receive on credit and debit cards when the merchants pay for fraud multiple times.

当然，所有商家必须支付的欺诈退款费用都是在他们支付的刷卡费之上。这些刷卡费用相当于向发卡银行预付所有欺诈费用（以及更多）。商家不应该为欺诈预付费用，也不应该在欺诈发生时除了预付费用外还要支付。他们也不应该听到关于信用卡和借记卡上所谓的“支付保证”，当商家多次为欺诈买单时。

It is worth noting that even with debit reform, merchants prepay all the fraud that banks otherwise cover. Federal Reserve Regulation II, which implements debit reform, includes 5 basis points as part of the regulated debit swipe fee to cover fraud losses by banks. That number was pegged to 100 percent of the fraud losses on debit cards paid by the average bank covered by the regulation. Of course, that means that fraud is a guaranteed profit center for many of the banks covered by the regulation (those with below average fraud losses). And, the vast majority of banks across the nation are not subject to the Fed’s fee regulation. They charge even higher fees that exceed their fraud losses on debit cards. Why merchants must pay chargebacks to cover the majority of fraud that they have already prepaid (and then some) to the banks is inexplicable.

值得注意的是，即使有借记卡改革，商家也会预付银行所涵盖的所有欺诈行为。 实施借记卡改革的美联储条例II包括5个基点，作为监管借方刷卡费用的一部分，以支付银行的欺诈损失。 这一数字与法规涵盖的普通银行支付的借记卡欺诈损失的100%挂钩。 当然，这意味着欺诈是法规涵盖的许多银行（欺诈损失低于平均水平的银行）的有保证的利润中心。 而且，全国绝大多数银行不受美联储费用监管的约束。 他们收取的费用甚至超过了他们在借记卡上的欺诈损失。 为什么商家必须支付退单来支付他们已经预付给银行（然后是部分）的大部分欺诈行为，这是无法解释的。

The harm done to merchants, consumers and the U.S. economy due to the anticompetitive actions of the card industry is far too large and should end. Market competition improves economic efficiency, innovation, and price competition. Bringing competition to the credit card market would produce real economic benefits across the spectrum. It is time for that to happen.

由于卡行业的反竞争行为对商家、消费者和美国经济造成的损害过大，应该结束。市场竞争提高了经济效率、创新和价格竞争。将竞争引入信用卡市场将带来真正的经济利益。是时候实现这一目标了。