Debit Cards

Cash: the merchant’s friend or foe? Two of the nation’s largest merchants on Thursday expressed surprisingly favorable views about the ancient payment method while an executive with the Chicago Transit Authority, the nation’s second-largest public-transportation system, wished it would go away as soon as possible. The comments came during the …

  With bank opposition to the Durbin Amendment growing, the National Retail Federation on Wednesday launched what it calls a major, 60-day advocacy campaign to “preserve swipe-fee reform” for debit cards. The multipronged effort, according to an NRF news release, includes an “intensive grass-roots” campaign to mobilize retailers through NRF …

  After taking a nasty hit in the recession, credit cards are back on their feet, though somewhat wobbly. Figures from First Data Corp., the largest U.S merchant processor, show that credit card usage is sustaining growth after returning to positive territory in early 2010. Data from the bank card …

Like them or not, the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial debit card regulations to implement the so-called Durbin Amendment will take effect, though possibly a little late, according to Capitol Hill observers speaking at the Electronic Transactions Association’s annual conference Wednesday. In the meantime, a proposed 12-cent cap on debit interchange …

Merchant groups on Monday sought to assure Congress that they won't reject small debit card issuers' cards once the so-called Durbin Amendment makes large issuers' debit cards much cheaper to accept. “If merchants didn't accept the card, they would risk losing the sale and losing the customer; a risk very …

Small debit card issuers are bracing for an eventual loss of 73% of their interchange revenues despite being exempt from pending interchange regulations under the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law’s so-called Durbin Amendment. That’s one of the more notable findings from the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s 2011 Debit Issuer Study released …

The freeze in U.S. bank card interchange rates, confirmed Wednesday by Visa Inc. for its network and last week by MasterCard Inc., is obviously good news for merchants and not-so-great news for credit and debit card issuers. But, somewhat surprisingly, it may not be all that welcome by merchant acquirers …

MasterCard Inc.’s new interchange schedule is out, and it contains no changes in consumer debit card rates or the transaction volume thresholds that many rates require. Normally, no change means no news, but in the highly charged world of interchange, anything the payment card networks do or don’t do is …

U.S. debit card holders received cash back on just over 1 billion point-of-sale purchases in 2009, according to new figures from the Federal Reserve. That statistical nugget and others in the Fed’s 2010 Payments Study help to explain why ATM operators are struggling to keep transaction volumes up. The Fed …

Overwhelmed by the volume of comments it received, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Tuesday said in letters to Congress the Fed would miss Congress’s April 21 deadline to have issued final debit card interchange and network regulations. Bernanke, however, said the Fed still plans to meet the …