PFMA praises House committee vote to provide businesses and consumers swipe fee relief 

HARRISBURG, PA – The Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association (PFMA) applauds action by the Pennsylvania House Finance Committee to advance House Bill 2090, a commonsense measure that would stop credit card companies from charging swipe fees on Pennsylvania sales tax. 

HB 2090 addresses a long-standing imbalance in the credit card marketplace, where two dominant payment networks control more than 80 percent of the market and impose excessive, anticompetitive fees on merchants. Under the current system, retailers are charged interchange fees on the full transaction amount, including sales tax, money collected on behalf of the Commonwealth that merchants never retain. 

“For food retailers operating on razor-thin margins, being charged swipe fees on sales tax is fundamentally unfair,” said Alex Baloga, President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association. “HB 2090 delivers a narrowly tailored, common-sense fix that protects Main Street businesses, helps keep prices down for consumers, and restores basic fairness to the payment system.” 

In addition to ending swipe fees on the sales tax portion of transactions, HB 2090 would improve fairness in disputed transactions by preventing penalty fees from being imposed until liability is formally determined. The bill also ensures card networks cannot restrict lawful pricing practices, including how merchants advertise discounts or surcharges. 

Importantly, enforcement authority under HB 2090 is limited to payment card networks and would be carried out by the Pennsylvania Attorney General. Banks and credit unions are not subject to enforcement actions under the legislation. 

PFMA welcomes the House Finance Committee’s action on HB 2090 and looks forward to working with friends and allies to further advance this legislation.