The Fed announced it will not change debit card swipe fee rates.
The Federal Reserve will not change the current interchange fee standard or fraud prevention adjustment, Credit Union Times Online reported.
The Fed made the decision based on the results of a survey of debit card transaction costs, which is mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act.
What’s more, the Fed reported that debit card fraud losses increased in 2013, compared to 2011.
“As in prior years, covered issuers’ costs of authorizing, clearing, and settling (ACS) debit card transactions, excluding issuer fraud losses, varied greatly across respondents in 2013, with the median issuer having an average ACS cost of 14.9 cents and the issuer at the 75th percentile having an average ACS cost of 42.2 cents,” the Fed said.
“Issuers with the highest debit card transaction volume generally had the lowest ACS costs per transaction as reflected in an overall average of 4.4 cents per transaction, down from five cents per transaction in 2011. Conversely, issuers with the smallest debit card programs generally had the highest ACS costs per transaction,” the Fed said in a statement.