n Sept. 12, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. announced the "Merchant Bill of Rights," a set of 10 fundamental practices concerning card processing to ensure transparency and fairness for all merchants.

Heartland also launched the Web site, www.MerchantBillOfRights.com The site explains all 10 rights and offers merchants and associations a place to be listed as supporters as well as learn about card processing, receive tips and share information.

Heartland Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert O. Carr said the rights were written to inform merchants about card processing costs and to drive savings for small and mid-sized businesses.

He wants these principles to be a "force for industry change" and hopes they will be adopted as a best practices standard.

The idea for such a standard has been batted about the industry for years. Critics of Heartland's move claim the company has seized upon this mandate to gain a marketing advantage when the list should have come from a nonprofit, unbiased party such as the National Association of Payment Professionals.

Carr said he was simply tired of waiting.

"After 20 years of watching one set of unethical practices follow another, I join many others in being completely fed up," he said.

"It is hard enough to run a small business successfully without having to watch your back from people debiting your bank account."

Credit and debit card processing costs are among the most significant expense items on many small- and mid-sized merchants' income statements, he said. Yet most business owners and entrepreneurs do not fully understand what's driving these costs or how to manage them. He called the Visa and MasterCard system "one of the great creations of American ingenuity," which, unfortunately, is being tarnished by unscrupulous salespeople using deceptive business practices.

"It is a shame to see [the system] get hijacked by financial engineering 'geniuses' who spend night and day trying to figure out how to blame the next hidden fee on Visa and MasterCard interchange," he said.

Carr admitted the recent interchange litigation, and the bad press the industry has received as a result, were compelling reasons to forge ahead with the list.

"The interchange rate story is the big-merchant story," he said. But the Merchant Bill of Rights is for small merchants who should be aware of and protecting themselves from unfair card processing practices.

When Heartland first posted the Merchant Bill of Rights online, a pull-down menu option allowed ISOs and merchant level salespeople to add themselves as supporters. However, that option has been removed due to junk sign-ups, such as "Mickey Mouse" or "Stupid Idea."

"We didn't believe we could police the signers from the industry," Carr said, "so we decided to list no one, including ourselves."

Whether the Merchant Bill of Rights was conceived as a marketing ploy or out of a genuine desire to create an ethical industry standard, few can fault the actual rights.

"They're dead on," said one ISO. "It might have been better if an association did it instead of one of the players, but I wish I'd thought of it."