Running a small business in Iowa means learning to stretch every dollar. I work long hours, manage tight margins, and hustle to build something meaningful in locations that big chains overlook. But no matter how efficient I get, there’s one cost I can’t control—credit card processing fees.
Every time a customer swipes, taps, or inserts their credit card at one of my stores, we get hit with a “swipe fee,” which is usually 2 to 4 percent of the total sale. That money doesn’t help my business or my team. It goes straight into the pockets of Visa and Mastercard, who control about 80 percent of the credit card market.
Small businesses like mine can’t negotiate better rates. We don’t get a seat at the table. Visa and Mastercard set the terms, and we’re forced to accept them. That’s not a free market. That’s a monopoly, and it’s costing Main Street billions.
To put it in perspective, U.S. businesses paid nearly $149 billion in credit card fees just last year. That’s more than 15 times Iowa’s entire state budget. And we don’t have a choice. If we stop taking cards, we lose customers. If we want to shop around, we can’t. The big two processors make sure there’s no real competition.
It’s time for that to change.
The Credit Card Competition Act is a bipartisan bill that would finally introduce some basic fairness into the system. No government price controls. No overregulation. Just good, old-fashioned competition. It would require the biggest banks to include a second network option on their cards so businesses like mine can choose how we process transactions. That’s it.
That simple fix could save small businesses up to $16 billion per year. We could use this money to reinvest in our people, our stores, and our communities. It could also mean real savings—as much as $1,200 per year—for everyday families who are paying more at the register because of these hidden fees.
I hope Iowa’s leaders, especially Senator Joni Ernst, will get behind this. As chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, she has a real opportunity to lead on something that directly helps the backbone of Iowa’s economy. This bill doesn’t grow the government. It just levels the playing field for the rest of us.
Small businesses represent 99 percent of Iowa’s economy and employ nearly half of our workforce. We believe in competition. We believe in hard work. We believe in fair rules. It’s time the credit card giants play by them, too.
Every day we wait is another day we’re losing revenue to a system that’s rigged against us. Let’s fix it.
Tiffany Fraley is the CEO of InConvenience Inc., a female-led company revitalizing overlooked retail and fuel stations with 15 locations in the Davenport and Cedar Rapids areas and growing across the Midwest.
