For more information on swipe fee reform, visit the National Retail Federation website.

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Senator Durbin files blistering amicus brief in support of efforts on behalf of small-ticket merchants
May 15, 2012
National Restaurant Association

     Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) filed a scathing friend-of-the-court brief in support of the NRA's lawsuit with other merchant groups against the Federal Reserve. Read Durbin's brief here: http://bit.ly/JAKqn2.   

     --As you remember, the lawsuit argues that the Federal Reserve's rule to implement the Durbin Amendment didn't follow what Congress intended. Effective Oct. 1, 2011, the Fed's rule limits covered banks to a debit-card swipe fee of 21 cents per transaction plus a portion of the transaction amount. The new cap was under the 44-cent average debit-card swipe fee merchants paid before Oct. 1. But it's had a perverse effect on a segment of merchants -- including quickservice operators with low average ticket prices -- who have seen rates climb as continued limited competition in the signature debit marketplace allowed Visa and MasterCard to raise their rates to the new cap.

     --Durbin's brief highlights bad behavior by the card networks and the negative impact on small-ticket debit transactions. After the final rule came out, Durbin notes that "first MasterCard and then Visa raised their small ticket  interchange rates ... to the Final Rule's maximum allowable level, increasing fees significantly for small ticket transactions." It's an "absurd situation," Durbin says, when card networks can charge a 22-cent interchange fee on the debit-card purchase of 10-cent pencil. The NRA joint lawsuit also challenges the Fed's final rule on network routing competition.

     --The final rule "is not in accordance with the plain text and intent" of his amendment, Durbin says. He said Congress's goal was to ensure that debit fees for merchants were "reasonable and proportional" to the cost of processing debit transactions. The Fed's initial proposal -- for a 12-cent debit swipe-fee cap for regulated issuers -- was more consistent with what Congress intended. But then the financial-services industry launched a campaign "that succeeded in influencing the Board to issue a final rule that deviated" from Congress's intent, Durbin said. The Fed allowed bank cards to include such costs as fraud losses and network processing fees in their standard -- something Congress never intended, Durbin said.

     --The Fed "twists and tortures" the meaning of the Durbin Amendment and tried to "split the baby" between big banks and merchants, Durbin says. He joined the NRA and the other plaintiffs in saying the Fe must go back and adjust its rule. The Federal Reserve has until June 1 to submit their response, after what a court date will be scheduled. Read the May 11 merchant filing in the case: http://bit.ly/LJUbyA.

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National Restaurant Association Joins Suit against Federal Reserve
March 12, 2012
Washington, DC
     The National Restaurant Association has joined a lawsuit challenging the Federal Reserve’s final rule on debit card swipe fees, arguing that the Fed did not follow congressional intent to issue regulations that would ensure debit card swipe fees for merchants are “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing debit-card transactions. The suit is intended to lower the rates by improving the Fed’s rule – not by stopping its implementation.

     As a result of the Fed’s favorable ruling to the big banks and card companies, Visa and MasterCard announced they would raise swipe fees to the Fed’s cap on small-ticket transactions ($15 or less). This move hurts small businesses with heavy small-ticket volume, such as the nation’s quick-service restaurants.

     “While the Federal Reserve’s rule significantly brought down debit swipe fees for many merchants, some small businesses will pay higher fees on smaller ticket transactions – evidence that the Fed provided card networks like Visa and MasterCard too much latitude to increase rates well above a reasonable and proportional level,” said Scott DeFife, executive vice president of policy and government affairs for the National Restaurant Association, in a press release. “Allowing higher fees on small-ticket bills was not the intent of Congress, and the Federal Reserve must reconcile this failure to comply with the law as intended.”

     After years of complaints from the National Restaurant Association and other merchant groups about uncontrollable and rising interchange fees for their members, Congress passed reforms under what is known as the Durbin Amendment to give the Federal Reserve the power to regulate interchange fees for debit cards.

    The Durbin Amendment was included in the Dodd-Frank financial services reform bill Congress passed in 2010. Named for its top champion in Congress, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the amendment charged the Federal Reserve with ensuring that debit-card fees are “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing transactions.

In June 2011, the Federal Reserve announced its final rule to cap swipe fees paid by merchants for debit-card transactions at 21 cents per transaction – less than the average 44 cents that merchants previously paid, but a significant increase over the 12-cent swipe-fee cap that the Federal Reserve first proposed in December 2010.

     The lawsuit against the Fed also argues that the final rule fails to promote the price competition among card networks that would help reduce network fees. The law intended to establish a competitive market dynamic between networks, such as Visa and MasterCard, to keep costs down. However, under the Fed’s final rule, there will be no competition on signature debit routing and very limited, if any, competition on PIN transactions.

    The National Restaurant Association joins the Food Marketing Institute, the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Retail Federation, Boscov’s Department Store and Miller Oil Company as plaintiffs in the suit.

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In cutting debit card fees, Fed should use Congress’s standard

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Retail Groups Sue Fed Over Debit Card Rules

From National Retail Federation
November 22, 2011

     A coalition of retail groups sued the Federal Reserve on Tuesday, claiming the regulator ignored the law by setting too high a cap on the fees that banks can charge merchants for handling debit card purchases.

     The National Retail Federation and other groups claimed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that the Fed buckled under pressure from bank lobbyists when it set the cap at an average of about 24 cents per transaction in late June. The previously unregulated fees used to average around 44 cents.

     The cap, which took effect Oct. 1, was initially proposed at 12 cents.

     American Bankers Association CEO Frank Keating accused retailers of "seeking more profits from government price controls" by filing the suit, and maintained that retailers have not passed on the savings that resulted from the cap to their customers.

     The merchant groups said that in raising the cap, the Fed considered expenses that the law did not allow. Their lawsuit maintains that the board dropped its earlier view that the only costs that should be considered in the fee were those involving the authorization, clearing and settlement of a transaction. Instead, the retailers claim, the Fed added costs, such as fraud losses, associated with a bank's debit card operations that were not included in the law.

     The result is that merchants sometimes now pay more in debit transaction fees. One of the plaintiffs in the case, Miller Oil Co. of Norfolk, Va., which operates convenience stores and gas stations, used to pay about 16 cents per transaction in bank fees.

     The suit maintains the cap is an "unreasonable interpretation" that exceeds the authority delegated to the Fed under the law. And it complains the Fed wrongly interpreted another provision of the law that requires merchants have a choice of which network handles their transaction.

     The law, commonly known as the Durbin Amendment after Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who championed it, is part of the financial regulatory reform passed in July 2010.

     Banks lobbied hard against the fee cap. They maintain it will cost them about $7 billion in annual revenue. Attempts to compensate for the loss to this and other regulations by charging customers monthly fees for using debit cards sparked a nationwide furor in recent months, leading the banks to drop their plans.

     Minnesota-based TCF Bank dropped an earlier lawsuit challenging the legality of the Durbin Amendment a day after the Fed set the cap above its original proposal.

     "The merchants are extremely frustrated," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "Our position in favor of reform has always been based on the fact that (shoppers) were subsidizing bank customer rewards because of a broken market.

     "The Fed essentially didn't fix the market as much as Mr. Durbin and the merchants thought they would," Mierzwinski said.

     A Fed spokeswoman said the regulator is aware of the lawsuit and will review it.

     In addition to the National Retail Federation and Miller Oil, the suit was brought by the National Association of Convenience Stores, the Food Marketing Institute and Boscov's Department Store of Reading, Pa.

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NACS says the Durbin Amendment is a weak excuse for new bank fees
By National Association of Convenience Stores
October 19, 2011
From NACS Online

“Merchants are counting their new found gains at our expense and our elected officials still don't comprehend the damaging impact of their misguided legislation,” wrote Patrick J. Swanick, Patrick J. Swanick, a retired KeyBank vice chairman and former president of Key's retail bank and CEO of Key Electronic Services, on October 10 in the American Banker.

“Mr. Swanick got one thing right in his piece "So Where Are Those Post-Durbin Price Reductions for Consumers?" (Oct. 10): "No one likes price increases, especially when they appear suddenly and without apparent justification." Hidden, unjustified price increases are what the merchant community and our customers have been facing for years with the way big banks and card networks collude to set both credit and debit card interchange swipe fee prices.

 

“Swanick's piece also ignores what Bank of America has recently admitted: it was going to impose these new fees more than a year ago. That had nothing to do with any new law passed by Congress, it was just the inexorable march of the biggest banks finding new ways to exact more fees from consumers. Why didn't Bank of America do it then? Well, Bank of America said it was concerned about how to communicate the new fee to consumers. Everyone knows that is simply code. What it means is that Bank of America didn't have anything good to blame for the new fee so it waited until it did. Now, it blames debit reform and Swanick buys the explanation without question. But centrally fixed fees that have exploded over the past decades were illegitimate to begin with and banks around the world (virtually all of which charge far lower or no interchange on debit) have shown that consumer fees don't increase based on interchange revenue. Consumer fees (unlike interchange) exist in a competitive market and go up and down on the basis of the dynamics of that market, period.

 

“Even U.S. financial institutions show the Bank of America excuse to be a smokescreen. There are plenty of institutions that are not charging new fees and are reaping the benefits of competition in the marketplace from customers who would rather take their business elsewhere than pay the fees. For example, the country's largest credit union, which is not exempt from the debit reforms and is not charging new fees, the Navy Federal Credit Union, reported that new account openings following Bank of America's fee announcement were 23 percent higher than average. That means Bank of America will soon learn whether the consumer market will allow the fees or not — and how that plays out will have nothing to do with debit reform.

 

“As for merchant costs, the fact that Swanick has no evidence of savings a couple of weeks after reform started is not surprising — both because of the short time elapsed and Swanick's obvious lack of looking. In fact, Reuters has already reported on new discounts and rewards offered by merchants. Swanick may wish it weren't so, but retail is the most price-competitive part of the U.S. economy and that means if merchant costs go down, prices go down. That is occurring and will continue (especially once merchants actually find out how much they're saving — something not yet possible under the non-transparent swipe fee system).

 

“The bottom line is that centrally fixed fees are bad economically and any effort to limit them is helpful. Swanick may buy the Bank of America party line, but readers ought to study the facts before they make the same mistake."​

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From the National Retail Federation

Justice Department Asked to Investigate Bank of America Debit Card Fee

By J. Craig Shearman
Washington Retail Insight
October 14, 2011

Close to half a dozen members of the House are asking the Justice Department to investigate whether new debit card fees announced by some of the nation’s largest banks violate federal antitrust law.

“It appears that banks are seeking to justify fee increases after Congress and the Federal Reserve Board recently limited banks’ ability to collude with networks to set debit interchange fees,” Representative Peter Welch, D-Vt., and others said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday. “Statements made by individual banks and their trade associations raise questions about whether some price increases that have occurred this year have actually been coordinated.”

Welch cited a $5 monthly fee Bank of America plans to begin charging in 2012 to customers who use their debit cards to make purchases in retail stores. Announcement of the fee came one day before landmark Federal Reserve regulations capping debit card swipe fees at about 21 cents per transaction – less than half the previous average of 44 cents – took effect on October 1. BofA said the economics of debit cards “have changed with recent regulations” and that it expects to lose $2 billion a year under the new cap on debit swipe fees.

Wells Fargo is testing a $3 fee, J.P. Morgan Chase is conducting a pilot program for its own fee and Regions Financial and SunTrust have also announced fees.

Besides the announcement of similar fees by multiple banks within a short period of time, Welch also pointed to a Texas Bankers Association email to members raising “a monthly fee” as an option for “how you are going to pay for the use of debit cards.”

NRF issued a statement on Thursday urging the Justice Department to move quickly on Welch’s request to look into the fees.

“Legal experts testifying before Congress and litigation currently pending in federal court have argued that banks have violated federal antitrust laws by collectively setting credit and debit card swipe fees,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said. “Now we have members of Congress asking the same question about new fees some banks are dreaming up. American consumers deserve honest and open competition in a market that is free of any hint of collusion. We trust that the Justice Department will ensure that this is the case.”

The Welch letter was also signed by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Representatives Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.; Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; and Michael Honda, D-Calif. Welch and Conyers have been among leading sponsors of legislation to bring credit and debit card swipe fees under control.

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NRF Says Bill to Repeal Swipe Fee Reform Would Cost Consumers Billions

- from the National Retail Federation

By J. Craig Shearman
Washington Retail Insight
October 13, 2011

Opponents of debit card swipe fee reform that took effect this month introduced legislation in the House this week to repeal the new regulations, but NRF warned that the measure would cost consumers more than $6 billion a year in savings that merchants plan to pass along to their customers.

H.R. 3156, the Consumer Debit Card Protection Act, was introduced by Representative Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, on Wednesday with Representative Bill Owens, D-N.Y., as its only cosponsor.

“This is a perfect example of the dangers of price controls and the inefficiency of government intervention in the free market,” Chaffetz said. “The Durbin Amendment is an affront to consumers and the banking industry.”

The bill would repeal a provision added to last year’s Wall Street reform law by Senate Major Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that required that debit card swipe fees be “reasonable and proportional” to banks’ action costs of processing the transactions. Regulations adopted by the Federal Reserve this summer to implement the law capped the fees at about 21 cents for the nation’s largest banks, down from an average 44 cents. Analysts have estimated that the cap will save merchants and their customers more than $6 billion a year.

NRF urged lawmakers to side with consumers rather than banks and reject the Chaffetz-Owens proposal.

“This misguided legislation would take billions of dollars in savings away from American consumers,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said. “The banks tried to stop this law from being passed, they tried to delay it once it was passed, and they managed to water down the amount merchants and consumers will save. Now that it’s just barely taken effect, they are trying to repeal it before anyone can benefit. Congress needs to stop doing the bidding of the banks and think about the people who paid for the bank bailout not so long ago – consumers and Main Street merchants.”

Retailers will not know the precise savings from swipe fee reform until statements from their banks arrive over the next several weeks. But merchants are planning a wide range of ways to use the savings to increase value for their customers, such as overall lower prices, specific discounts for using debit cards, free or lower-cost delivery on appliances, free alterations on clothing, or hiring additional staff to improve customer service, to name just a few examples.

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Senate Rejects Bank-Led Bid to Delay Swipe Fee Reform

- from the National Retail Federation

By J. Craig Shearman
Washington Retail Insight
June 9, 2011

Retailers and their customers won a multi-billion-dollar fight with the banking and credit card industries this week when the Senate rejected a proposal to delay a new federal law lowering swipe fees charged to process debit card transactions.

“This is a landmark victory for American consumers that will give them the break from skyrocketing swipe fees that they have been seeking for years,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “It will prevent more than a billion dollars a month from being pocketed by big banks and, in turn, allow retailers to hold down prices for consumers.”

The Senate on Wednesday voted 54-45 in favor of an amendment offered by Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., that would have postponed the July 21 implementation date for swipe fee reform. But the amendment needed 60 votes to pass – the same number it took to pass swipe fee reform last year – and banks’ supporters were unable to come up with the final half-dozen votes despite a massive misinformation and lobbying campaign aimed at killing reform.

Tester, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, billed his amendment as a compromise because it would have delayed reform by only one year rather than the two years proposed in legislation he introduced earlier this spring. But the new version would have gone further by requiring the Federal Reserve to take into consideration a broad range of unrelated bank spending rather than just the actual costs of processing debit transactions as mandated under last year’s law.

“Retailers and their customers could be forced to subsidize banks’ costs of installing new ATM machines or building new branches,” NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French said in a letter to senators before the vote. “Even Wall Street bonuses and exotic junkets are likely to be considered costs under Senator Tester’s new language. Rather than bringing fees down, this amendment will force swipe fees even higher.”

A separate bill sponsored by House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., also calls for a one-year delay and remains pending. But House leaders earlier said they wanted the Senate to move first, making further congressional action less likely at this point. That leaves the Federal Reserve clear for the moment to complete work on regulations to improvement reform, and Chairman Ben Bernanke says he expects to have the final rules done in time for the law to take effect next month as scheduled.

This week’s vote came after NRF, which has been a leader in the retail industry’s fight for lower debit and credit card swipe fees for more than half a decade, launched national lobbying, grassroots and media campaign to ensure that reform was not delayed. In the past three weeks, NRF has published print ads in Capitol Hill publications, run radio ads in key states across the country, used social media, and flooded Senate offices with thousands of e-mails and calls from retailers opposed to any delay. NRF has held dozens of meetings with key members of the Senate and their staffs, and has conducted scores of news media interviews.

Regulations proposed by the Federal Reserve to implement the swipe fee reform provisions included in last year’s Wall Street law would reduce debit swipe fees charged by the nation’s major banks an estimated 70 percent, saving about $14 billion a year that retailers plan to pass along to their customers through discounts or other benefits.

Under the Fed’s proposal, debit card swipe fees would be lowered from their current level of 1 to 2 percent of each transaction to a flat fee of no more than 12 cents per transaction for large banks that adhere to fee schedules set by the card companies. Banks that set their own rates would be free to charge any fee they believe the market would bear provide that they do so independently. Financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets are exempt.

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This editorial by SDRA Executive Director Shawn Lyons appeared in the April 9, 2011 edition of the Rapid City Journal.

Banks’ ‘swipe fees’ gouge small businesses

     An issue important to South Dakota's 70,000-plus small businesses is being debated in Washington right now, including propaganda about how South Dakota will and won't be affected. I'd like to set the record straight on behalf of the state's retailers and small businesses.

     Part of the financial overhaul signed into law last year was a measure to adjust the market that governs a little-known business cost called swipe fees.

     Banks charge merchants a pretty astonishing sum every time a customer swipes a debit card to make a purchase. Congress directed the Federal Reserve to review the fees and ensure that they are "reasonable and proportional." Last December, the Federal Reserve proposed to implement that legislation, limiting swipe fees to 12 cents max. The proposal was met with praise from consumer groups, small businesses, retail-industry groups such as my organization, and even free-market antiregulatory economists.

     However, the big banks in New York and San Francisco weren't so pleased. They fear their astonishing profit margins may slip back to fair and reasonable, in line with other thriving sectors of the U.S. economy.

     The Federal Reserve estimates that when a customer uses a debit card, no matter the purchase price, processing that transaction costs about four cents. Here's where it gets tricky. According to Federal Reserve data, U.S. merchants now pay $.44 on average - more than 10 times the actual cost.

     It's particularly comical when you consider that not long ago, when debit cards first came about, card companies and banks actually paid merchants to accept them.

     Any good economist will tell you that prices that skyrocket beyond explanation or out of proportion to demand are the classic indicator of the presence of a monopoly. Today, neither competing debit-card brands nor small merchants have had the leverage to force Visa, MasterCard and the big banks to return fairness to those fees.

     It has created a profit center that big banks are rolling in to the tune of $20billion annually. Meanwhile, hardware stores, coffee shops and farm supply stores across South Dakota are absolutely crushed by the growing cost. Merchants can't shape or negotiate swipe fees. The fees now rival rent and staffing as the biggest line items on most small-company ledgers.

The new reforms are popular because they would enable merchants large and small to keep prices low and grow their businesses. One study estimates reform could create as many as 250,000 new jobs nationwide. And the U.S. General Accounting Office found that when debit swipe fees were reduced in Australia, consumers enjoyed lower prices.

     We understand the pressure that our congressional delegation is under by the bank lobbying, however, it is South Dakota's Main Street businesses that are being threatened by these out of control swipe fees. Opponents argue only the big box retailers advocate reform, but it's South Dakota's small businesses that are the most affected. Under the free-market system, both parties affected are able to negotiate. The reality is there is no place for retailers to negotiate under the current system.

     It bears noting that banks that make less than $10 billion are exempt from the Fed's proposed cap on swipe fees, even though they are increasingly complaining about the reforms, even here in our state.

     The swipe-fee reforms on the table give big banks an opportunity to raise fees and cast the blame elsewhere. It's an opportunist's dream. But they are going to raise fees whether swipe fees are capped or not, because they feel entitled to excess profit at the expense of other honest, hard-working segments of the U.S. economy.

     Small merchants are not looking for a free ride. We only want costs set and profit distributed as free-market forces would have them, not as banking-industry monopoly dictates. These reforms get us closer to that place. I hope South Dakota's congressional delegation will recognize the negative impacts of the current system and will be among those who bring an end to it.

This Forum piece is written by Shawn Lyons, executive director of the South Dakota Retailers Association. (www.sdra.org)

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      With the big banks fighting hard to delay or repeal debit card swipe fee reform and legislation to do so introduced this week, there’s a lot of misinformation being spread around Washington lately. It’s time to set things straight.

Community Banks
      The banking industry’s wildest false claim is that mid-sized and small banks will somehow be hurt by swipe fee reform.

The truth is that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act specifically exempts financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets from swipe fee reform. Bankers smaller than that will be allowed to continue to charge the current 1 to 2 percent of each transaction while only banks above $10 billion would be affected by the Federal Reserve’s proposal to cap debit swipe fees a flat fee of up to 12 cents. Smaller banks will actually be able to charge higher swipe fees than the Wall Street banks once reform takes effect.

Honor All Cards Rule
       Banking associations are claiming retailers will refuse to accept debit cards from exempted banks because their swipe fees will be higher than those from big banks.

      The truth is retailers will continue to accept all debit cards from all banks. Visa and MasterCard each have the “Honor All Cards Rule.” The rules say if a retailer accepts any Visa debit card, the retailer must accept all debit cards under the Visa name. The same with MasterCard. If the retailer refuses, the card companies can fine the retailer or yank out the retailer’s card privilege. In addition, there is no automated way for a retailer to know at the cash register what fee is charged by a specific card, and it isn’t practical to keep a list of cards or to train thousands of sales associates on which card to accept. Finally, retailers simply aren’t going to turn away a customer with a shopping cart full of merchandise and risk having him or her walk out empty-handed.

Costs Taken Into Consideration
       The banks claim the Fed, in setting the 12-cent cap, hasn’t taken into consideration all the costs that go into the debit card “product.”

      The truth is the Dodd-Frank law sets out all of the costs necessary to authorize, collect and settle a debit transaction, and the Fed has taken those costs into account. What has been left out are things the banks want to pay for with swipe fees but which aren’t part of processing the transaction – like the massive junk mail campaigns that clog consumers’ mailboxes with card offers every day.

      It should be remembered that a debit card is not a “product” and therefore claims about the need to make a return on investment make no sense. It is merely a way for consumers to access the money in their bank accounts, the same as a paper check or a withdrawal slip. Nobody expects to earn a return on a withdrawal slip or check so why should consumers have prices driven up when they are withdrawing money via a debit card? Remember that debit cards were introduced to save banks the cost of processing checks or hiring bank tellers to deal with in-person withdrawals.

Fraud Costs
       Banks also say the Fed’s proposal doesn’t take into the account the cost of fighting debit card fraud.

      The truth is that the lion’s share of fraud is paid for by retailers when the banks issue a “chargeback” against a fraudulent purchase and pull the money back out of the merchant’s account.  And most debit card fraud comes when debit cards are used in signature transactions rather than with a PIN. Signature transactions are inherently susceptible to fraud because a thief only has to scrawl the card owner’s name on the sales slip. The legitimate signature is even on the back of the card for the thief who cares enough to make a good forgery! But a PIN is a secret number prudent consumers carry in their heads. A lost or stolen debit card without that secret PIN is worthless.

      Banks encourage consumers to sign for debit transactions because signature transactions go across the credit card networks and collect the higher end of swipe fees – around 2 percent – rather than going across ATM networks and collecting the lower end of 1 percent. They are bringing the extra exposure to fraud upon themselves.

Swipe Fee Reform Too Rushed?
       Banks claim reform is being pushed through and there isn’t enough time for the Fed to complete final regulations in April or to implement the final rules by July as required under Dodd-Frank.

      The truth is Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Sarah Bloom Raskin told a House committee in February that the Fed is, in fact, on schedule to have final regulations in place in April.

Banks have also claimed swipe fee reform was rushed through Congress and added to Dodd-Frank without a hearing. The truth is Congress held more than half a dozen hearings on swipe fee reform prior to approving last year’s law, passed at least one swipe fee reform bill out of committee, and argued the issue during floor debate on other financial services reform legislation. NRF, in fact, has testified at multiple swipe fee hearings.