The Merchants Payments Coalition, a U.S.-based trade association, said it approves of proposed legislation in Canada to set credit card swipe fees at 0.3 percent of the purchase amount as a way to save that nation's consumers and merchants billions of dollars and energize the economy, the group said in a press release. 

The group pointed to similar reforms in the European Union and Australia and said it believes the same should happen in the U.S.

"These exorbitant fees raise prices of everything consumers buy, even if they don't use a card, and hurt the poorest consumers most," the group said in a statement. 

"Successful reform measures in the European Union and Australia have exposed the true cost of these hidden fees to both the consumer and the merchant," said Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president of government and public affairs at the Food Marketing Institute, a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition. "We encourage Canadian legislators to expose the cost of these hidden fees and rein them in."

The group said it will urge Congress to pass reforms similar to those in the EU and Australia.