WASHINGTON -- When the House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Task Force convenes a hearing on credit card interchange today at 2:00 p.m., one of the arguments lawmakers will likely hear will be based on the experience of Australia with card interchange.

In Australia, interchange is either subject to price controlled or allowed to be passed on to the consumer by the retailer. Neither approach, Visa has argued, has cut costs to the Australian consumer.

"The interchange debate is not about antitrust issues; it is about business," argued Rosetta Jones, vice president with Visa USA. "Lobbyists representing some national retailers and trade associations are asking Congress to lower retailers' costs of doing business by imposing price controls and by granting retailers the ability to impose consumer check out fees on their customers.
 
"This cost-shift maneuver has already been tried in Australia where both mandated price controls and check out fees have resulted in increased costs and fewer choices for cardholders. A bad policy decision in Australia clearly led to consumer harm, which we hope to avoid here in the U.S."