Tausi Insider

Gordon Dean hands groceries to a customer (Will and his dog Sammi) in his store in Chesterville, Ont., on Nov. 10. Christinne Muschi/Tausi Insider At Gordon Dean’s small-town grocery stores in Ontario and Quebec, the rattle of coins in the checkout tills is a more infrequent sound than it used to be. The five stores in the Mike Dean Local Grocer chain are seeing customers pay with credit cards much more often. Before COVID-19, about 40 per cent of purchases were made in cash; these days, it’s closer to 18 per cent. And that has taken a bite out of the bottom line. “It’s chewed it up,” Mr. Dean said. “It basically increased our monthly processing-fee bill by 30 per cent.” Credit cards are the most common form of payment in Canada, and their use has skyrocketed during the pandemic. But how the credit-card system actually works is something most of us rarely think about – to the chagrin of some business owners, who subsidize the cost of that system. “Your travel points or your rebates –...

Although the threat of regulation certainly makes for good politics, it simply won’t result in lasting relief for small businesses. Banks will find ways to recoup those costs. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press Ottawa is putting the credit-card industry on notice. If Visa, MasterCard, banks and payment processors won’t voluntarily slash credit-card processing fees for small businesses, then the Liberal government will drop the hammer of regulation in the new year. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland issued that warning as part of the government’s recent fall economic statement , setting the tone for talks at the bargaining table. With draft amendments to the Payment Card Networks Act already in her back pocket, Ms. Freeland is making it clear to industry players that she means business. Too bad that government regulation of credit-card transaction fees isn’t the solution to this vexatious problem. Although the threat of regulation certainly makes for good politi...

The Biden administration on Friday said it was ordering Mastercard Inc MA-N to stop blocking the use of competing networks to process debit payments. Under a proposed order, Mastercard would have to start providing competing payment networks with the customer account information they need to process payments, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces competition laws, said in a statement. “This is a victory for consumers and the merchants who rely on debit card payments to operate their businesses,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement. In a statement, Mastercard said it had reached an agreement with the commission on the routing of certain debit card transations, adding that it believes its current practices are “lawful” and that it provides options to merchants. “We will continue the work to update our processes to comply with the consent order and provide even greater choice,” the company said. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-orde...

U.S. retail sales rose 7.6% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, which encompasses a majority of the holiday season, as steep discounts lured deal-hungry consumers, a Mastercard report showed on Monday. The increase is higher than the 7.1% growth Mastercard had forecast in September, when it anticipated consumers would pull purchases to October in the hunt for early deals. However, this year’s holiday retail sales growth is less than the 8.5% increase last year as decades-high inflation, rising interest rates and the threat of a recession turned consumers cautious. Retailers including Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc in the United States offered large discounts during the holiday season to get rid of excess stock and bring back inventories to normal levels. That led to strong demand for everything from toys to electronics during the five-day-long period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. However, sales of electronics dropped 5.3% over the broader roughly two-month period, according to the ...