How is that a "pious" belief? Let's say that retailers' financial services costs drop by 1% of revenue, and they choose to raise their prices by 5%, because th

How is that a "pious" belief? Let's say that retailers' financial services costs drop by 1% of revenue, and they choose to raise their prices by 5%, because they're really greedy or mean. Their competitor across the street is also really mean, but only raises their prices by 4%. As a thought experiment, play that scenario through a few more turns. The effect of lowering their costs for financial transactions is to lower retailers' minimum price for selling their products. They're "allowed" to charge as much as they like, though there are legal restrictions that make it illegal to collude with their competitors. And, even if they do collude there are motivations to defect from those illegal agreements that tend to undermine them. A higher level view will appreciate that the higher sticker prices from higher transaction costs largely ended up being refunded to consumers through credit card reward programs, but probably distorted the prices for buyers paying with cash.