Yesterday, around 3:30 p.m., the Federal Reserve issued its final rule on the Durbin amendment. The rule fixes the price of debit interchange at 21 cents per transaction plus an ad valorem component of 5 basis points to reflect a portion of fraud losses.
"We continue to be concerned about the impact on consumers and small financial institutions from this price fixing policy," said Trish Wexler, spokeswoman for the Electronic Payments Coalition. "We hope Congress will exercise vigorous oversight of this new policy and monitor its implementation in order to assess and minimize its negative consequences to consumers, small financial institutions and the American economy."
The Federal Reserve also approved an upward adjustment of no more than 1 cent per transaction to an issuer's debit card interchange fee for fraud prevention costs.
The deadline for implementation of the final rule is October 1, 2011.
