There are TONS of fees in the credit card processing industry so now that the Durbin Amendment has gone into effect- we are happy to report that the government intervention into our industry is turning out to have one positive impact for our merchants! While the chaos and the added fees caused by the Durbin Amendment are making front page news and costing consumers lots of extra dollars, some merchants are going to see a reduction in the fees associated with the debit cards impacted by the Durbin Amendment.
I say 'some' because
- A: the amendment took specific aim at cards issued by institutions larger than 10Billion and
- B: not all credit card processing companies will pass the reduction in interchange, down to their merchants
Industry experts are guesstimating that merchants who accept a large amount of debit cards (both signature & pin based) can expect to see a 20-35% reduction in fees for these particular card types. The card associations have answered by adjusting the cost for cards not impacted by the Durbin Amendment (it's called Free Enterprise). Likewise, some credit card processing companies are electing to pass either a smaller % of the savings or none, back to their merchants- again, in America we call that Free Enterprise!
We have elected to keep our same profit margin and pass the entire Durbin Amendment savings back to our merchants- we consider it a Win/Win. Our merchants win with reduced fees on the card types affected and TMC wins by making sure we are doing everything we can to create a successful business by being of service for our merchants!
At TMC, we do not condone government intervention into any industry and would highly recommend each person taking a long look into our history and why our founders created this great nation in the first place!! Consumers vote with their pocketbooks, businesses vote with their pocketbooks and Americans need to speak with their VOTE. Anytime the government is given authority to regulate one industry, it is a sure thing that the next industry impacted could be yours!!
