Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), who introduced the amendment just after the height of the financial crisis in 2010, boasted in an official Senate statement that his bill would give “customers a real chance in the fight against the outrageously high ‘swipe fees’ charged by Visa and MasterCard.”
“By requiring debit card fees to be reasonable, and by cleaning up Visa’s and MasterCard’s worst abuses, small businesses and their customers will be able to keep more of their own money,” Durbin continued, before claiming that his legislation would “restore common sense and fairness to this broken system.”
In the seven years since the amendment’s passage, Durbin’s pet project has wreaked havoc on the American consumer. According to a study by George Mason University, retail prices did not drop after the Durbin Amendment was introduced; instead, it has cost low-income and minority consumers over $8,000,000,000 annually in additional fees.
The Durbin Amendment imposed government price controls on "interchange fees," which are the fees banks charge retailers for debit and credit card transactions. His amendment was backed by large retail lobbyists, who profited from the reduced retail fees at the expense of banks. After Dodd Frank’s passage, banks passed those costs along to consumers by raising ATM fees, penalties, and more.
The American Consumer Wins By Dismantling Dodd-Frank
“By requiring debit card fees to be reasonable, and by cleaning up Visa’s and MasterCard’s worst abuses, small businesses and their customers will be able to keep more of their own money,” Durbin continued, before claiming that his legislation would “restore common sense and fairness to this broken system.”
In the seven years since the amendment’s passage, Durbin’s pet project has wreaked havoc on the American consumer. According to a study by George Mason University, retail prices did not drop after the Durbin Amendment was introduced; instead, it has cost low-income and minority consumers over $8,000,000,000 annually in additional fees.
The Durbin Amendment imposed government price controls on "interchange fees," which are the fees banks charge retailers for debit and credit card transactions. His amendment was backed by large retail lobbyists, who profited from the reduced retail fees at the expense of banks. After Dodd Frank’s passage, banks passed those costs along to consumers by raising ATM fees, penalties, and more.
The American Consumer Wins By Dismantling Dodd-Frank
