Many small businesses are breathing a bit easier as inflation has cooled and the race for workers slows. But consumers’ steady embrace of credit cards is taking a growing bite out of their margins. Gene-Christian Baca, the owner of Walter’s Hot Dogs in Mamaroneck and White Plains, New York, estimated that he now pays $50,000 a year in costs associated with processing credit card transactions, a sum he says has ballooned with rising card processing rates and more customers paying with cards over cash. “Every year, 3% of all of our sales is washed away just to credit card processing,” he said. A Visa credit card inserted into a card reader in Tiskilwa, Ill., on Sept. 18, 2018.Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images file Merchants have long shouldered these “swipe fees,” the catchall term for businesses’ payments to banks and card companies each time customers swipe. While a federal…
