Airport Restaurants & Retailers Join Forces With Merchants Payments Coalition
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) is growing its contingent of groups pushing for lasting change to the payments market, with the Airport Restaurant and Retail Association (ARRA) joining the coalition.
"Airport merchants continue to recover from the pandemic and still face many challenges including high credit card swipe fees that drive up the cost of doing business and prices for our customers," said ARRA Executive Director Andrew Weddig. "Our members desperately need relief from unjustifiably high swipe fees and we know the banking industry's scare tactics about rewards going away are false. Bringing competition to swipe fees will only help businesses that rely on travel and tourism."
[Read more: Majority of Voters Support Federal Action on Credit Card Fees]
ARRA members provide food, beverages, retail products and services at airports across the country while employing more than 110,000 workers.
"We welcome ARRA members to the fight for fair, competitive swipe fees," said MPC Executive Committee member and NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor. "These businesses see the impact of these out-of-control fees every day and their involvement shows that swipe fees touch virtually every merchant whether they do business downtown, at the mall, online or even at the airport."
MPC continues to push for passage of the Credit Card Competition Act, which seeks to lower credit and debit card swipe fees. The coalition also applauded the June dismissal of a class-action antitrust lawsuit over swipe fees, calling it "a bad deal for Main Street."
Current MPC national association members include the American Beverage Licensees, the American Booksellers Association, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, the Coalition of Franchisee Associations, FMI – the Food Industry Association, the Energy Marketers of America, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, the Institute for Local Self Reliance's Independent Business Initiative, the International Franchise Association, the Merchant Advisory Group, NACS, the National Association of College Stores, the National Association of Theater Owners, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the National Grocers Association, the National Lumber and Building Materials Dealers Association, the National Retail Federation, the National Restaurant Association, the National Sporting Goods Association, the Outdoor Hospitality Industry and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
In addition to national associations, hundreds of state merchant associations are also members.