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30/07/2010 -
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill into law and gave the Federal Reserve Bank the authority to regulate fees incurred when consumers pay at credit card machines. However, the fight is far from over.Pennsylvania Representative Jason Altmire has called a hearing in the House Small Business Committee to consider competing claims from retailers and banks to determine what will benefit consumers most, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Retailers are welcoming the change, saying that in the past few years, banks have continued to raise fee rates. Banks argue that the fees represent a necessary part of revenue that helps them maintain plastics transactions worldwide, the paper writes.
The testimony will be used as a record for future considerations and negotiations surrounding the bill. "We're going to see whether some of these arguments pan out or not and then we can adjust based on the testimony we've heard and make changes," Altmire told the Post-Gazette.
Concurrently, the Senate Appropriations subcommittee is considering another amendment to the bill that would limit interchange rates on transactions with federal government entities. The measure would reduce fees to the lowest current market rate, the Credit Union Times reports.
