Durbin Interchange Amendment - not consumer friendly?
There is a very interesting article written by Bill Handel from The Raddon Repor t on March, 9, 2011 it starts: There is movement afoot to address the issue of debit card interchange. Unless you’ve been on safari for the last three months, you are very much aware of the loud industry protestations resulting from the Federal Reserve’s Reg II, which was issued in December. Click here to read the entire article. The Durbin Amendment was meant to be consumer-friendly. Mr. Handel includes possible ways financial institutions could react that are actually very UNfriendly to consumers: Reduce its full-time employee count by 18 people, an effective reduction of 11 percent. This assumes $4.5 million assets per employee and $65,000 in salary and benefit costs per employee. Or … Lower its rate on deposit accounts by 16 basis points, or … Impose a $6.08 per month fee on checking accounts with balances below $1,000. This assumes that 60 percent of checking accounts have balances of less th...