Back in Jan I blogged about the Wall Street Reform Bill and particularly about the "Durbin Amendment" which allows the fed to regulate the fees banks charge to merchants for debit card transactions. Previous article here. Time is running out and this is a big game changer if it goes through, so I thought I would provide an update.
Over the last few weeks there has been intense lobbying by big banks to at least delay the limiting of the interchange fees and so far at least 9 senators have signed on to delay the bill for at least 2 years. The amendment is scheduled to take effect this July (with a ruling on fees April 21st) so the senators (led by Sen, John Tester) are pushing to pass the delay quickly. We are talking about $16B in fees a year so there is a lot at stake.
If the delay is passed it may very well end up eventually killing the amendment. So the $16B race is on before it takes effect. My money says they will pass the delay and put it off for another day. I think they have even bigger issues to work out like a federal budget don't they?
In the meantime, the big banks are planning to raise other fees to recover the revenue loss if needed. Stay tuned to see what happens over the next few weeks.
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