An Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner provides a good understanding of the way retailers feel about the current efforts going on to repeal the part of Dodd-Frank that impacts debit card interchange. This legislation called the Financial Choice Act, which also looks to redefine other aspects of Dodd-Frank has been introduced and has now moved forward in committee. If you are interested in looking at the bill itself, you can find that here.
Retailers are objecting to all aspects of the Financial CHOICE Act and claim that the price controls on interchange have been great for consumers:
Those fees raise prices for almost everything consumers buy, from aspirin to airline tickets, even if they don’t use cards. According to a prominent economist, Americans saved nearly $6 billion in the first year of debit reform alone and those huge savings supported 37,000 jobs.
It is quite true that by ratcheting down interchange, American have saved billions, if you consider businesses to be “Americans”. Determining whether the savings that merchants are seeing post Dodd-Frank and the Durbin amendment have been passed along to consumers hasn’t been proven and this article doesn’t provide a source for their claims.
Regardless of your opinion on how interchange rates are regulated, I would put H. R. 5983 on your radar screen to watch.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
Read the full story here