When Payments Hype Meets Reality

I'd love to get your perspective on something else on the networks, since we're talking about them.

U.S. merchants paid about $198 billion in card fees in 2025.

That's pretty much the highest ever.

One thing I'd love to get your perspective on is, what do merchants get for that money that they don't appreciate? And then tell us where it's indefensible.

I can argue both sides of this discussion.

Very few people can, which is why I want your perspective.

Yeah, I mean, I believe card fees could be reasonably lower.

I think this whole notion that interchange rates seem to go up every year is pretty insane.

However, I think merchants underappreciate the impact that having card payments so readily accessible, consumers being able to spend more than they will likely spend if they didn't have access to a card and to the credit that was associated with it.

I think all the noise and rhetoric and lawsuits and things that have happened over the years.

I think there's a lack of understanding.

I think also this, I don't know if we're going to talk later about surcharging, which is one of the banes of the card world's existence right now.

But maybe I'll throw in a point about that.

I think merchants who choose to surcharge, I think it's a short-term gain for a long-term decline.

I think that unless they're in a commodity, like you're charging for something that your customer has absolutely no choice in providers.

And of course, when I go to pay my DMV car registration bill, if I want to use a credit card, they charge me a surcharge.

Well, I can't go register my car with the Nevada DMV because I live in California.

So I simply don't have a choice.

But of course, I'm cheap.

So I choose to pay with an ACH payment instead of paying the surcharge.

But again, so I think to answer your question, I think I've regretted the greed that has existed that has led to just ever increasing interchange rates.

And I have a profound... idea that I've shared with a number of folks.

And I think people look at me like deer in the headlights and they don't think it would ever be feasible.

But I would suggest that interchange should not be a peanut buttered cost.

I think it could be much more selectively applied, intelligently and selectively applied.