comment letter
How Proposed Interchange Fee Caps Will Affect Consumer Costs
Executive Summary
The Durbin Amendment limits interchange fees that banks charge for processing merchant debit card transactions, requiring them to be “reasonable and proportional” to the card-issuing bank’s costs. The Federal Reserve Board enacted Regulation II in 2011 to enforce the Durbin Amendment. It set fee caps that reduced covered debit interchange fees by more than 40 percent. In November 2023, the agency proposed a new rule that would reduce the average interchange fee a further 23 percent (5.4 cents) per covered debit card transaction.
