WASHINGTON – A recent opinion piece in the Daily Caller laments the big cost of swipe fees to small businesses. According to the piece authored by Don Nickles, chairman and CEO of the Nickles Group, small, Main Street businesses are engines of job growth and demonstrate what is best about our competitive American economy: entrepreneurship, ingenuity and thrift.

Nickels goes on to describe the “unfair and unnecessary challenge” that threatens the viability of many small businesses: swipe fees. Such fees cost merchants and consumers more than $30 billion each year.

Every time a customer swipes a credit or debit card to make a purchase, that business pays an interchange fee to the bank that issued the debit or credit card as well as network fees to the credit card company. For the last ten years this cost of doing business has been a merchant’s fastest-growing expense. On average, these fees have become the second-largest operating cost. For some, the fees paid approach their labor costs. American businesses pay the highest swipe fees in the world. Compare that with Australia, where the rate is one fourth what our businesses are paying, or Europe where the rate is roughly one third.

Credit and debit card swipe fees are centrally fixed by the dominant credit card companies so that every bank in America charges exactly the same schedule of fees. This price-fixing avoids competition and inflates costs. What’s worse is that for years, these fees have remained hidden. No competition and no transparency are a lethal combination for consumers and merchants alike.

“My own small business experience taught me the importance of hard work and the value small employers bring to a community. I understand the challenge of meeting payroll, balancing your books and the thousand other considerations that come with being a business owner,” writes Nickles. “Too often, misguided government oversight and regulation hamper a business’ growth, but here a lack of good policy has stacked the deck against business.” He goes on to urge Washington to consider the implications on Main Street and — if needed — revise policy so small businesses can thrive.