Congress Cuts Debit Fees In Rare Loss for Largest U.S. Banks

For all the complaining that "small businesses" do about bank fees, I wonder how many stop to think about how much extra volume those cards generate (albeit at a smaller profit).<p>I'm old enough to remember the days when people had to carry cash or a checkbook to pay for their retail purchases. I cannot see any way that impulse purchases are not way up in the age of debit/credit card payments compared to then. And online businesses certainly wouldn't be where it is today without the existence of debit/credit transactions.<p>I'm not speaking from firsthand knowledge, but I think that for the lower barrier to impulse buying, the reduced need to handle cash or worry about bounced checks, that it might well be worth fees that "averaged 1.63 percent of the transaction amount"

Note that consumer card rewards programS are paid by the merchant. Lowering the fees is unambiguously a good thing. I wish regulations were such that caps needn't be mandated, but barriers to innovative entrants are just so high.<p>I wish congress would regulate some minimum standards for merchant services. That space is a total clusterfuck.<p>Regulation should either be wise or gtfo. This layer on top of unwise regulations is unfortunate.

I love that added incentive on top towards small banks: this only applies to the biggest banks. It's a small, but clever, change.

Dick Durbin speaks truth.