Bloomberg reports that the senate approved debit card swipe fee limits:
Lawmakers voted 64-33 yesterday to approve the measure from Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, who seeks to ensure that debit-card interchange, or “swipe” fees, charged to merchants “are reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing transactions. Payment networks Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., which set interchange rates and pass the fees along to card- issuing banks, fell in early trading.
The amendment permits retailers to offer discounts for cash, checks or debit cards, or for a particular card brand, and would let merchants set minimums and maximums for credit-card purchases.
On one side you have the politicians stating that passage of the bill will help small business. Now they can fight against these high fees. You have MasterCard on the other side stating :“The Durbin amendment would give lobbyists for big retailers what they have been unable to achieve through other efforts -- the ability to maintain all the benefits they receive from debit-card acceptance while transferring the cost to consumers."
As a business person I can see why the retailers would want this. As a consumer I guess somebody has to pay for it...it usually ends up being us.
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