Credit Card Companies Waive Fees for Haiti Relief

All of the major credit card companies have announced they will not charge the usual transaction fees for certain donations made toward relief efforts in Haiti.

Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover have all separately announced the waiving of interchange fees, typically between one to three percent of a given transaction.

So instead of charities like the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders losing out on a piece of each donation, they’ll get to keep that money and ideally use more of it to help those in need.

Visa said it wouldn’t apply interchange fees through February for select charities yet to be named; MasterCard is waiving interchange fees on relief donations made to American Red Cross, AmeriCares, Unicef, Save the Children and CARE U.S.A.

American Express will rebate transaction fees for charitable donations made on its card for nonprofit organizations listed on the Agency for International Development’s website.

Discover is also waiving fees, but didn’t make clear which organizations would be included.

It’s believed credit card companies and banks make around $250 million a year on fees tied just to charitable donations; they make billions annually for all transactions.

They’ve only waived their fees once in the past, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

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