Fed’s Debit-Card Fee Rules Hit Hard; Issuers Howl

(Wall Street Journal) — A set of new debit-card restrictions proposed by the Federal Reserve on Thursday was more aggressive than investors feared, potentially causing billions of dollars in lost revenue for U.S. banks and stiffening competition for credit-card providers.  The new restrictions, most of which won’t be made final until April 21, aim to cap the amount of money that debit-card issuers can charge merchants for so-called swipe fees. Banks would face a seven-to-12-cent-per-transaction cap on the interchange fees under either of the two proposals unveiled Thursday. That represents as much as an 84% drop from the current average of 44 cents. Analysts had been expecting a drop of up to 60%.

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