The stiffer routing requirements may pose technological hurdles, according to David Stein, a director at the banking consulting firm Promontory Financial Group.
He noted that Visa (NYSE: V) and MasterCard (MA) currently run the only signature debit networks, and questions whether those two systems could cope with potentially unpredictable swings in volume. He also said that the entire logic of the routing system would have to be changed to allow for Visa cards to be processed over MasterCard’s network, and vice versa.
“I don’t want to say that they are insurmountable technological obstacles,” said Stein, a former lawyer at the Fed. “But they could be very costly and disruptive to implement.”