The National Retail Federation (NRF) issued the following statement from Senior Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs Bill Thorne in response to the attack from the American Bankers Association:
“The American Bankers Association has made the tactical choice to avoid talking about the merits of the court’s swipe fee settlement decision, primarily because the settlement is flawed and without merit, and instead decided to attack a retailer that was a recent victim of data theft.
“Ironically, in many cases these types of theft are aided and abetted by the banking industry, which forces companies that accept credit and debit cards to use the fee-laden and fraud prone mag-stripes and signature cards when other technologies, such as chip and PIN, are being used successfully around the world.
“It is not difficult to understand why the bank lobby would prefer to throw stones at the retail industry instead of talking about real changes we can undertake which will help prevent data breaches in the future. Pointing fingers and blaming others for their industry shortcomings over the last several years has become a standard response, but it doesn’t make it any less tiresome.”
NRF is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing discount and department stores, home goods and specialty stores, Main Street merchants, grocers, wholesalers, chain restaurants and Internet retailers from the U.S. and more than 45 countries.