Message from CEO James Gergen

Help CPM Keep Your Credit Card Transactions Secure

In most newsletters I share updates but today I am asking for your help. Please join CPM in opposing the “Credit Card Competition Act of 2022”. This Act is an effort by retailers to move your credit card transactions from the trusted networks we use today to networks they choose. Retailers have proven time and again their interests are in achieving the lowest possible transaction costs for themselves and not in securing your credit card data. For years we have all seen the headlines and suffered from breaches of card holder data due to the retailers’ sloppy data security practices. We bear the cost of the breaches, including processing and paying claims and reissuing cards. You bear the inconvenience of having to fi le claims and get new cards. The retailers will not bear either the cost or the inconvenience if they get their way and are allowed to route your transactions through cheaper and less secure channels.

Did you know? CPM is a part owner of the VISA® network, and you benefit from our ownership. Retailers pay us for each VISA® transaction routed to us and those payments help us recover our costs from processing and paying card claims and enable us to offer services like card reward points. The routing fee is called interchange, and while the amount per transaction is small, it adds up. The interchange fees paid by retailers helped us offset the significant fee reductions we put into place on September 1, 2022.

We have proven time and again that when we do well, we pass on the benefit to our member-owners. Retailers have proven time and again that they care about their profits and not data security. They want their lobbyists to upend the proven channels in use today and get Congress to intervene. Please visit protectinterchange.com and let your representatives in Congress know we should leave the routing decision in the hands of those who bear the liability and consequences.