Protect NCs small businesses by lowering credit card fees 

DOMINIQUE BURLESON

Entrepreneur Dominique Burleson contends credit card "swipe fees" overburden North Carolina's small business owners.

In the coming weeks, North Carolinians will be browsing for books to match the holiday spirit.

Whether they’re picking out a gift for a loved one or curling up with a Christmas classic, bookstores like mine are expecting a healthy bump in store visits. 

But behind the counter, we’re facing a growing problem that has nothing to do with paper or ink: credit card “swipe fees” imposed by a modern-day credit card cartel. As North Carolina’s elected leaders explore ways to invest in Main Street, addressing the stranglehold major credit card networks have over the payments arena would be a meaningful step. 

When a customer makes a purchase at my store and uses a credit card at the checkout, I’m on the hook to pay a small tax called a “swipe fee”—generally between two and four percent of the ring-up price—to the credit card network and issuing bank. 

What does this amount to? In 2024, credit card networks collected nearly $150 billion in “swipe fees” nationwide. Here in North Carolina, merchants lose more than $283 million from these fees on sales tax alone. This makes “swipe fees” the second-highest operating cost after labor.

For business owners like me, I could be using that money to expand my shop’s selection, host more events, or simply give back to my community. And the situation is unlikely to improve thanks to extreme consolidation in the credit card market. 

Visa and Mastercard control more than 80% of the credit cards in circulation, allowing them to raise “swipe fees” with minimal pushback. Unlike other retailers, bookstores can’t simply adjust prices to absorb these costs. The prices are printed right on the covers, set by publishers, leaving us little flexibility.

Fortunately, the Credit Card Competition Act is the right prescription for this headache. By requiring the biggest banks to include at least two processing networks other than Visa and Mastercard on their credit cards, the measure would break the current stranglehold in the payments market and open the door to competitors like NYCE, Star, or Shazam. 

With this healthy injection of competition, “swipe fees” would come down across the board, saving businesses and their customers an estimated $16 billion annually. And despite recent headlines about Right versus Left—whether it be the government shutdown or simple budget battles—the Credit Card Competition Act has no shortage of bipartisan support. 

Elected leaders like Vice President J.D. Vance and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) have all backed the measure. Small business support for the act is strong too, with more than 80 percent of Main Street operations throwing their weight behind it, according to recent polling from the Job Creators Network Foundation. 

Small businesses and independent bookstores like mine are the cornerstone of the North Carolina economy, comprising over 99 percent of all businesses across the state. Not only would the Credit Card Competition Act help us keep the lights on, but it would allow us to grow and give more to our communities. North Carolina’s elected leaders in Washington would be wise to seize this rare moment of bipartisan consensus and pass free market credit card reform.

Dominique Burleson is the owner of Paperbacks & Frybread Co. in Lilesville, N.C., and a member of the Lumbee Tribe.

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