Saturday, March 5, 2011

The negative effects of lobbying?




The Durbin Amendment was slipped into to the Dodd Frank Act (an 848 page document) with no hearings and little opposition. However, it will change the way banking is done forever and have negative consequences on the public. The Amendment limits the amount of money debit card companies can take from each retail sale by a significant amount, making debit cards very expensive for banks to support. The banks will of course transfer this cost to the public. So you can probably kiss your free checking account and debit card rewards goodbye. Thanks Dick Durbin.

4 comments:

Megan said...

And don't make fun of me for posting this at 3 AM during spring break. I'm just too heated about the Durbin Ammendment to fall asleep.

TJE said...

You go girl!

PBM said...

I have a question on this piece. What exactly are these "interchange fees?" Is it when I have to pay more to use an ATM that isn't my bank's? Is it also the extra fee that can be charged to my card just for buying something with it? Just want to get some clarification.

Megan said...

No. It's when the credit card company gets a percentage of money from the sales. They are taking money from the retailers not from the consumers.