Canada’s large merchants have called on the government to impose price controls on interchange fees, claiming this would benefit not only merchants but also consumers. But experience elsewhere contradicts this claim.
In a recently released Macdonald Laurier Institute report, Julian Morris, Geoffrey A. Manne, Ian Lee, and Todd J. Zywicki detail how price controls on credit card interchange fees would result in reduced reward earnings and higher annual fees on credit cards, with adverse effects on consumers, many merchants and the economy as a whole.
This study draws on the experience with fee caps imposed in other jurisdictions, highlighting in particular the effects in Australia, where interchange fees were capped in 2003. There, the caps resulted in a significant decrease in the rewards earned per dollar spent and an increase in annual card fees. If similar restrictions were imposed in Canada, resulting in a 40 percent reduction in interchange fees, the authors of the report anticipate that:
- On average, each adult Canadian would be worse off to the tune of between $89 and $250 per year due to a loss of rewards and increase in annual card fees:
- For an individual or household earning $40,000, the net loss would be $66 to $187; and
- for an individual or household earning $90,000, the net loss would be $199 to $562.
- Spending at merchants in aggregate would decline by between $1.6 billion and $4.7 billion, resulting in a net loss to merchants of between $1.6 billion and $2.8 billion.
- GDP would fall by between 0.12 percent and 0.19 percent per year.
- Federal government revenue would fall by between 0.14 percent and 0.40 percent.
Moreover, tighter fee caps would “have a more dramatic negative effect on middle class households and the economy as a whole.”
You can read the full report here.
