House Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on US Interchange Fees

As we mentioned here on Payments News on Monday, the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on Thursday, May 15th beginning at 11 AM Eastern time on H.R. 5546, the “Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008”. As of tonight, the committee's website doesn't list the witnesses who will be testifying - but it promises that a live webcast of the hearing will be available.

As an editorial comment, many of us in the payments industry find the "solution" proposed in this legislation to be overly complex. Read the actual text of the draft legislation - and you may reach the same conclusion! We wonder whether the merchant community in fact would be well served by the remedies proposed. A very basic question comes to mind: "Is this the best you can do?"