Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, reporter Don Butler notes that “Capping transaction fees paid by merchants or regulating credit cards rules will harm consumers, says a new paper released by an Ottawa public policy think tank.”
The story details the findings of the Macdonald-Laurier report “Credit where it’s due: How payment cards benefit consumers and merchants, and how regulations can harm them.” The paper by authors Geoffrey A. Manne, Ian Lee, Todd J. Zywiki and Julian Morris finds that proposed interchange fee regulations, interference with surcharging rules, and restrictions on the “honour-all-cards” rule would cause consumers to face considerably higher banking costs, while paying the same for their consumer goods. Since the higher banking costs fall disproportionately on lower income consumers, in other jurisdictions such regulations have “literally made the poor poorer,” the authors write. For the full report click here.
