Plans to remove debit repeal from the Choice Act were announced
By NACS Online
Politico is reporting that House Republicans are removing the repeal of debit swipe fee reform from H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, after facing significant pressure from members in the Republican conference. The repeal effort is the most controversial piece of the massive legislation aimed at repealing and reforming parts of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
For nearly a year, the retail industry has opposed House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling’s proposal to repeal the Durbin Amendment, which limited what the largest banks could charge in swipe fees and injected competition on swipe fees and network routing fees into the debit card market. NACS, along with other members of the Merchants Payments Coalition, have led the efforts to strip the repeal provision from the Financial CHOICE Act.
Yesterday, House leadership began surveying members of their conference on the CHOICE Act, and it became clear that the votes were not there to pass the bill unless the repeal of debit reform was removed from the bill.
Politico reports, “House Republican leaders will drop language from a sweeping bank deregulation bill that would have eliminated a cap on debit card swipe fees, handing a major victory to retail lobbyists who spent months trying to kill the provision.”
“House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling plans to offer a manager’s amendment to remove the provision from the bill, which he wrote, committee spokesman Jeff Emerson said.”
The announcement from the House Financial Services Committee is welcomed by NACS and the retail industry. We look forward to seeing the official language in the manager’s amendment, and encourage members to continue to voice support for the debit reforms to your representatives until it is officially removed.
