The Durbin Amendment
The recent Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 had largely no affect on the merchant account side of the banking business. That is, until the Derbin Amendment was attached and pushed through. I recently had the opportunity to see Senator Christopher Dodd speak at ETA, and he explained how the amendment was pushed through at the last minute - nobody really paid attention to it, and it just got passed along with everything else. The Durbin Amendment has some major ramifications to the payment processing industry. Specifically: A cap of 7 to 12 cents on most debit card swipe fees, a decline of about 80% from present levels The introduction of competition, by giving merchants a choice as to which debit network they process transactions over. For example, present arrangements effectively force merchants to process many Visa transactions over the STAR network, even if competitors like PULSE and NYCE offer to conduct the same transaction at a lower processing...