Debates about credit card companies and holders usually revolve around the supposed detriments experienced by one or the other. Consumers have presented reasons why they shun their credit cards while the companies have also argued against stricter restrictions in order to protect their business.

What is often lacking in the picture is the involvement of the merchants. They are also affected by the consumers and the banks that issued consumers their credit cards. They enter the picture when consumers purchase products and pay for services in the merchants’ business establishments or commercial enterprises using their credit cards.

The consumers are not the only ones charged for bank fees upon using their credit cards but also the merchants who accept these cards for payment. Every time a consumer pays visa the plastic, 2 percent of the total amount of what is to be paid gets remitted to the bank which issued the credit card. Merchants are at a loss valued accordingly to the actual price of the purchase or the needed payment.

The merchants complain about this scheme which is subtracting money from what they are supposed to get in full in the first place. Merchants have started to call for regulation in this aspect of the credit card issue. They do not want any more amounts being remitted to banks or credit card companies whenever customers use credit cards for payment.

On the other hand, the banks argue that 2 percent is not that great of an amount. Credit card companies want the merchants to recognize that without the plastic, customers will not be as empowered to purchase items and pay for services in any merchant’s business or enterprise.

Still the debate continues. The rationale of the banks charging 2 percent to merchants is that the amount remitted will offer a safety net for the card-issuing banks once their respective card holders no longer pays his or her debt. This is a way by which the banks and credit card companies can recover losses in the event the consumers delays payment or does not pay at all anymore.

For the merchants’ part, this is not a right thing to do. Their main reason is that in protecting the banks’ or credit companies’ interests, the merchants are left to fend for themselves. They say they are losing profit from the already decreasing shares they get as a result of the economic downturn. Merchants now refocus the debate by calling for less charge to be subtracted from their profit. It is still a question, however, whether this could be done while ensuring an efficiently working credit card system.

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