Article: Merchants target interchange costs: another Federal Reserves forum lets merchants vent on pricing while a lawsuit takes on Visa's no-surcharge rule.(Pricing Trends)

Merchants continued their assault on the card associations' interchange fortress this spring, though it appeared to be more talk than a furious battering ram breaking down doors.

The verbal debate moved to the Midwest in May at the 2005 Payments Conference held by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Merchant action over rising interchange rates, meanwhile, was taking place in Georgia.

Merchants contended in Chicago that interchange fees never decline even though card fraud has dropped, new payment markets have opened and transaction volume keeps growing. Visa USA and MasterCard International long have argued that interchange revenues are used to fight ...

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