Debit Cards About to Get Cheaper

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

If the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, the Fed is about to crack down pretty hard on debit card swipe fees. Apparently they’re considering two similar plans:

Both plans involve a cap of 12 cents per transaction and could cost banks billions of dollars in lost revenue but represent a victory for retailers.

Under one plan recommended by Fed staffers, card-issuing banks could use a formula to determine the maximum amount of an interchange fee that it may receive, based on certain costs incurred by the bank to process debit transactions. The Fed would set a “safe harbor” standard at seven cents per transaction. But then, any costs in excess of the safe harbor could be recovered up to the 12-cents-per-transaction cap….The alternative plan doesn’t involve a safe harbor plan, just the 12-cents-per transaction cap.

Unless I’m missing something, this is a pretty stiff regulation. Current swipe fees generally amount to 1-2% of the transaction, so the fee on a $100 purchase is upwards of a dollar or two. Under either of the new rules, the maximum fee would be 12 cents.

It’s not clear how much of this reduction will be passed on to consumers and how much will end up in retailers’ pockets. But considering the monopolistic nature of the debit card market and the heavy-handed contracts it allows card companies to force on merchants, this rule seems eminently reasonable. Dodd-Frank says debit card charges have to be “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of providing the service, and 12 cents sounds about right to me.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate