Recent legislation was passed that makes it possible for franchisees to reduce what they pay in card processing fees to Visa and MasterCard. The Durbin Amendment was a last-minute addition to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that went into effect October 1, 20011. The Federal Reserve ruled that debit interchange fees to merchants...

Article reprinted from Bluemaumau.com. IFA President, Steve Caldeira, recently wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal  complaining that a recent article about the perils of franchising “ignores that more than 90% of franchisees renew their contracts with their franchisers at the end of their terms.”  The obvious claim is that more than 90% of...

Article reprinted from Bluemaumau.com. What’s wrong with franchising in 2012? A paradoxical question; the whole of the franchising community is neither entirely flawed nor without blemish.  Perhaps I would invoke the words of Charles Dickens and assert that franchising is experiencing “the best of times and the worst of times.” The franchising community...