Debit Card Issuers Pile on Rewards, and Fret
Robin Sidel and Rob Lieber report for the Wall St. Journal on debit card rewards programs and the difficulties banks are having constructing viable rewards programs given the lower revenue that debit cards generate for card issuers as compared to credit cards.
The problem, however, is that the banks earn less money from debit cards than from credit cards, which can include finance charges, late fees and annual fees. Debit cards usually don't have many consumer fees associated with them. Furthermore, banks earn bigger fees from merchants on credit-card transactions than debit-card payments.
Add your comment... (note that all comments are reviewed before they're published)