A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is drafting legislation that would delay the implementation of debit-card “swipe” fee rules, reports Bloomberg. According to two Senate aides with knowledge of the plan, Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Tom Carper of Delaware, both Democrats, are working on the bill’s language with Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, and could introduce the bill as soon as this week.
The Fed, in a rulemaking required by the Dodd- Frank Act, has proposed capping debit-card fees interchange charged to merchants at $0.12 per transaction to replace a formula that averages about 1 percent of the purchase price.
The legislation, if implemented, would be the first attack on the rule that could costs banks, including Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan (JPM) as much as $12 billion in annual revenue.
Related: Visa Inc. (V), Mastercard Inc. (MA), Discover Financial Services (DFS), Capital One Financial Corp. (COF), American Express Co. (AXP).
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These bankers need to remember that, properly managed, saving money can equal making money. Processing and clearing Checks is far more expensive than client’s use of Debit Cards. If banks encourage the use of debit cards even at the proposed lower rate, the money saved by not having to process checks may still make banks their billions of dollars.
For a bunch of people in the money business, they don’t seem to think very creatively.