USA Today writes:
"It would be a disservice to tell people to load up their wallets," says Mallory Duncan, NRF's general counsel and senior vice president. "People should balance their entire card portfolio carefully. Only take cards with genuine value to you as a customer."
What the stores get
So what's all the promoting about?
Duncan says stores are "looking at all sorts of alternatives to keep down the ever-increasing Visa-MasterCard fees." Visa and MasterCard charge a fee equal to 2% of every transaction, which will cost retailers up to $26 billion this year, he says. When stores offer cards that are co-branded with Visa or MasterCard, they save some money in fees. When they offer their own cards, they avoid the fees completely.
"The cost of accepting other cards is so great that retailers can provide very significant benefits to consumers if they are willing to use their cards," Duncan says.
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