Creditnet News Story
New Hampshire legislators weigh credit card swipe fee limit
Monday, January 23, 2012
By Linda McCarthy
Lawmakers in the state of New Hampshire are currently mulling whether to pass a bill that would limit the amount payment processors can charge to businesses for accepting a credit card purchase.
New Hampshire House Bill 1319 was introduced by Goffstown Republican John Hikel and is designed to give more cost certainty to small businesses as well as help improve their profit margins by limiting the amount some banks can charge them for accepting credit card transactions, according to a report from the Nashua Telegraph. The law would limit the swipe fees charged by state-chartered banks to just 1 percent of a total transaction's value.
A MasterCard representative told the newspaper businesses currently pay an average of about 1.75 percent of a total purchase price for every credit card purchase they process, the report said. But on an individual basis the fees can range anywhere from 0.67 percent to 4.76 percent, and merchants typically do not learn that price at the time of purchase.
The law would be enforced in addition to federal limits imposed in July on debit card processing fees for banks with assets in excess of $10 billion, the report said. There are 18 state-chartered banks in New Hampshire that would be affected by the credit card fee cap, and six more that would not be restricted by the limit.
The federal limit on debit card transaction fees reduces the amount financial institutions can charge from an average of 44 cents per transaction - based on a percentage of total purchase price - to a hard cap of just 21 cents. This change was imposed in July 2011, and prompted many banks to look for new ways to make up the revenue, including introducing or boosting fees for banking services.
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