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EPC Calls for Durbin Amendment Repeal and Better Security Standards: Support H.R. 5465, H.R. 5983 and H.R. 2205 to Protect Consumers
WASHINGTON (September 30, 2016) – Five years since the implementation of the ill-conceived Durbin Amendment, customers are still not seeing savings at the register and small businesses continue to feel the impacts of this legislation. Ahead of the October 1st anniversary of Durbin Amendment implementation, the Electronic Payments Coalition calls on legislators to continue their support of repeal by backing H.R. 5465 and section 335 of H.R. 5983. The Durbin Amendment continues to be nothing more than a merchant markup allowing big box retailers to pocket more than $36 billion to date—impairing small mom and pop stores and hurting customers in the process. “The numbers don’t lie: the Durbin Amendment has been a complete failure for everyone except the big-box stores, who have padded their bottom lines to the tune of six to eight billion dollars each year,” said Molly Wilkinson, executive director of the Electronic Payments Coalition. “Once consumers … Continue reading
Rep. Neugebauer: Durbin Amendment Helps Retailers, Not Consumers
“Rent-seeking” is a widely recognized economics term that refers to when people or groups try to obtain economic benefits for themselves through a subsidy in the political arena. In Washington, the term has special significance. Special-interest groups regularly try to gain subsidies by securing a special regulation that disadvantages competitors. In 2010, the powerful retail lobby went “rent-seeking” and found its champion in Sen. Dick Durbin, D. Ill. His debit interchange fee provision inserted in the Dodd-Frank Act has resulted in the successful transfer of more than $35 billion from one sector of the economy to another. The Durbin amendment, as it has come to be called, mandated that the Federal Reserve cap the “swipe fees” that banks charge retailers for the service of processing electronic payments. Continue Reading
Congress deserves answers on retailers’ merchant markup
Last month news broke that allergy sufferers were paying nearly 570 percent more for EpiPens than they were when the technology was introduced in 2007. Members of Congress, their constituents, and the media were outraged, and demanded an investigation. Rightly so. Consumers deserve answers. Just as outrageous is how big box retailers have spent the $36 billion in additional profits they’ve pocketed since debit card price controls were put into place six years ago at the behest of merchant lobbying groups. Members of Congress and their constituents deserve answers. Continue Reading
EPC Urges Durbin Amendment Repeal to Stop Price Caps Hurting Americans
WASHINGTON – The Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), representing more than 12,000 credit unions and community banks, trade associations, payment card networks and banks, submitted comments supporting the repeal of the Durbin Amendment in the Financial CHOICE Act. Commending Chairman Hensarling for his leadership in addressing the overly burdensome and unfair price controls introduced by the Durbin Amendment, the EPC stated that the Durbin Amendment failed to deliver on its key promise, which was savings for consumers. “The Durbin Amendment has adversely impacted low-income consumers because it resulted in raised banking costs and made debit a less desirable option…and negatively impacted small and community banks even though they were told they would not be harmed. Evidence of the Durbin Amendment’s failure is clear, and because of its negative impact on consumers, particularly low- and moderate-income consumers, and community banks and credit unions, it deserves to be repealed,” writes EPC Executive Director … Continue reading
Op-Ed: Congress Should Fight Harmful Mandatory Swipe Card Fees
As the campaign season is now in full swing, many voters are tuning into politicians that are saying and do anything to get elected. However, there are some leaders that truly take on the hard work of legislating and work tirelessly to try and solve the problems of hardworking Americans. That is why the Electronics Payments Coalition is commending House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling for putting serious thought and initiative into creating The Financial CHOICE Act. The bill’s name stands for Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers, and Entrepreneurs, and would help boost the economy by creating more competition while providing much needed relief from overly burdensome regulations. Of critical importance to our coalition is repealing the harmful federal price controls of the Durbin Amendment that mandated debit card acceptance fees. Continue Reading
Banks Step Up Push to Repeal Durbin Amendment
WASHINGTON — More than 50 state bankers associations have rallied behind legislation from Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, to repeal caps on debit interchange fees. The groups argue in a letter in a letter Friday to Neugebauer and other members of the House Financial Services Committee that an amendment added to the Dodd-Frank Act by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., failed to help consumers and instead benefited only retailers. Continue Reading
Bill to Repeal Cap on Swipe Fees Introduced
Legislation to repeal the federal cap on debit card fees was introduced Tuesday in the House. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, the author of the legislation, said in introducing his bill that the cap on swipe fees “represents an egregious example of the federal government picking winners and losers. Simply put, it represents crony capitalism at its worst.” Continue Reading
Morning Money: Durbin Amendment Fight Returns
DURBIN AMENDMENT FIGHT RETURNS — Rep. Randy Neugebauer on Tuesday introduced H.R. 5465 to repeal the Durbin Amendment with support from the Electronic Payments Coalition — American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association, Financial Services Roundtable, Independent Community Bankers of America and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions DURBIN NOT PLEASED — Per release from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.): “Repealing the Durbin Amendment would be a windfall for Visa, MasterCard and the nation’s biggest banks, but it would diminish transparency and competition in the debit card system and harm millions of Main Street merchants and their customers. Make no mistake – Main Street will not give up its hard-won gains under the Durbin Amendment without a fight. And repeal of the Durbin Amendment will not happen on my watch.” Continue Reading
Durbin Fights Effort to Repeal Interchange Cap
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) is vowing to fight a renewed effort to repeal the cap on debit card interchange fees – a part of the Dodd-Frank Act that is known as the Durbin Amendment. “Repeal of the Durbin Amendment will not happen on my watch,” Durbin (pictured) said after Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) introduced H.R. 5465, which would repeal the cap. Continue Reading
Neugebauer Bill Aims to Repeal Durbin Amendment
On June 14, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) introduced H.R. 5465, a bill that aims to repeal the Durbin Amendment (Section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Act). The Durbin Amendment required the Federal Reserve to limit the interchange fee that a card issuer could collect from merchants for debit card transactions. Under the rule implemented by the Fed in June 2011, the maximum interchange fee that a card issuer could receive was set at 21 cents per transaction and 5 basis points multiplied by the value of the transaction. Not surprisingly, with the drop of multibillion-dollar annual revenues for card issuers, the Durbin Amendment has been popular with retailers and merchants but not so much so with debit card issuers. Continue Reading