“This is just a first step, but a vital one, to help alleviate some of the card network restraints on FMI members’ ability to provide discounts to their customers. This enforcement action is focused on anti-competitive practices related to credit cards and re-enforces the need for credit card transactions to be subject to the same reforms authored by Senator Durbin related to debit cards,” says Leslie G. Sarasin, president and chief executive officer of the Food Marketing Institute (FMI).
Sarasin continues, “Neighborhood supermarkets look forward to continued scrutiny of anti-competitive practices with credit and debit cards that were not addressed in the department’s enforcement action. Visa and MasterCard have hundreds of pages of non-negotiable, take-it-or-leave-it network rules that have stifled and continue to stifle market competition.”
FMI anticipates that this action by the department will begin to open possibilities for competition in the marketplace.
Food Marketing Institute (FMI) conducts programs in public affairs, food safety, research, education and industry relations on behalf of its nearly 1,250 food retail and wholesale member companies in the United States and around the world. FMI’s U.S. members operate more than 25,000 retail food stores and almost 22,000 pharmacies with a combined annual sales volume of nearly $650 billion. FMI’s retail membership is composed of large multi-store chains, regional firms and independent operators. Its international membership includes 126 companies from more than 65 countries. FMI’s nearly 330 associate members include the supplier partners of its retail and wholesale members.
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