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Fed will leave swipe fee cap as is

March 6, 2013

Whatever changes Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., thinks the Durbin Amendment swipe fee cap might need, the Federal Reserve seems perfectly content with it as is. This week, the Fed said it has no plans to alter its current rules on swipe fees, despite (or due to) a 52 percent decline in interchange revenues from Q1 2012 to Q4 2012.

According to Fox Business, a Fed report said that at institutions covered by the Durbin amendment rule, interchange fees plummeted from an average of 50 cents per transaction for the first nine months of 2011 to an average of 24 cents per transaction during the final three months of that year.

Banks exempted from the rule (FIs with assets below $10 billion), also received less in interchange fees, experiencing a 4 percent decline to about 43 cents per transaction.  Exempt card issuers accounted for more than a third of all debit transactions, the Fed said.

Last week, Bachus told attendees at the CUNA 2013 Governmental Affairs Conference in Washington, D.C., that legislators might take up the subject of interchange fee cap legislation this year.

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