NRF Sues Over Debit Fees
Debit-card reform became law last year, but the fight over the law’s extent has not ended.
On Nov. 22, the National Retail Federation, National Association of Convenience Stores and Boscov’s department store filed a suit against the Federal Reserve in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in order to change how the law is administered.
The suit charges the Fed with incorrectly executing the Durbin Amendment, which was the 2010 law that set a cap on debit-card fees, or the point-of-sale fees banks charge when debit cards are used in a retail transaction. The current cap is 21 cents, down from a pre–Durbin Amendment cap of 44 cents.
The suit says that the current cap allows for additional fee charges that are excessive. Also, credit-card companies have charged maximum fees even for small-ticket items, which have chipped away at margins and profits at convenience stores and restaurants.
“The Federal Reserve was required by law to come up with swipe fees that were ’reasonable’ and ’proportional,’” said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president and general counsel of NRF. “But what we got were neither.”——A.A.
