Oct. 2, 2012 – NAFCU President and CEO Fred Becker participated in a panel discussion about the Durbin amendment on debit interchange Monday during the 2012 PULSE Conference in Las Vegas.
The panel discussion, “Insights & Solutions Forum: Capturing Opportunities – Strategies to Prosper in a Post-Durbin Environment,” focused on the impact of the debit interchange fee cap and ways financial institutions can make up the revenue lost as a result of that cap.
The Durbin amendment, part of the Dodd-Frank Act, tasked the Federal Reserve with determining what is a reasonable, proportional debit interchange fee. The Fed issued a final rule that capped debit interchange fees at about 21-22 cents per transaction.
Institutions with less than $10 million in assets are exempt from this cap, but a survey conducted recently by NAFCU shows that the exempt institutions are the ones that have been affected the most.
Merchants are suing the Fed, claiming the fee cap is too high.