Arlington, VA - Today, FMI - The Food Industry Association issued its endorsement of the Ensuring Fee-Free Benefit Transactions (EBT) Act introduced by Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), Vice Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee, and Rep. Tony Wied (R-WI), House Agriculture Committee Member and former small business owner and retailer. The legislation protects grocers and customers by permanently prohibiting additional fees from being imposed on retailers for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) transactions.
FMI's Chief Public Policy Officer Jennifer Hatcher stated, “As private sector partners with the federal government serving as critical access points for SNAP participants, FMI and its grocery members are committed to strengthening the integrity and efficiency of SNAP for millions of customers in every community. We are grateful for the bipartisan leadership of Representatives Brown and Wied in introducing the EBT Act to permanently protect SNAP authorized retailers from incurring processing or other related fees outside of their control for EBT transactions. Imposing these fees would create an unfair burden on both grocers and consumers."
The EBT Act makes permanent a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill that prohibits states and state contractors from levying processing and other related fees from a state's side of a SNAP electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transaction onto SNAP authorized retailers. While a permanent ban on interchange or swipe fees in SNAP already exists, the EBT Act applies the same permanent ban on state-side transaction fees being imposed on retailers. SNAP authorized retailers must pay for their side of the costs associated with a SNAP EBT transactions, but processing or other related fees outside of retailers’ control have never been previously imposed on SNAP authorized retailers.
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