Retailers Push For Lower Debit Card Fees

Mike Scott writes for the Oakland, MI Business Review about the give and take between merchants and banks with respect to the fees merchants pay for PIN-based vs. signature-based debit transactions. Separately, the Center for Responsible Lending has announced a new study titled "Debit Card Danger" (PDF) that concludes that banks are "taking advantage of the upward trend in debit card use to make high-cost overdraft loans more common and still costlier. “What banks are calling ‘bounce protection’ is starting to look more like a ‘protection racket,’” said Eric Halperin, director of CRL’s Washington office and a co-author of the report. “Banks are raking in fees from unwitting customers who would not overdraft if given a choice.”