Groups Clarify Position On Debit Fee Rule In Letters

The debate over debit fee rules is playing out in a series of letters this week.

A group representing executives at major U.S. tech companies has retracted its support for Sen. Jon Tester's (D., Mont.) bill to delay rules that would cap the debit card "swipe fees" banks charge retailers when consumers use their debit cards.

Just last week, TechNet sent letters to lawmakers such as Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) asking them to support Tester's plan to delay the federal rules, a proposal that's backed by banks and other financial companies such as card-payment processor Visa Inc. (V) but opposed by retailers.

"The additional time proposed by Sen. Tester is a common sense solution," TechNet President Rey Ramsey wrote in the April 6 letter.

However, TechNet backtracks in its latest letter.

"We would like to clarify that our position on the Tester proposal is neutral," Ramsey wrote in the latest, April 12 version.

People familiar with the situation say that many of TechNet's members were outraged by the first letter. One of the group's members is Visa, which strongly opposes debit fee caps. But the group also includes technology-related retail companies such as T-Mobile, Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Dell Inc. (DELL).

Meanwhile, the NAACP clarified its position in the debit fee debate that has pitted the powerful financial and retail industries against each other. Hilary Shelton, director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Washington office, said he thinks the organization's March letter was misinterpreted as backing the banks' call for delaying the swipe fee rules. So he sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) on Tuesday to clarify the civil rights group's position.

"To be perfectly clear, ... we do not support a delay of the implementation of the rules," he wrote in his letter.

Those aren't the only letters that have emerged this week on the swipe fee issue.

Sen. Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who drafted the provision that requires regulation of the debit card fees, Tuesday fired off a letter to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon.

Durbin's letter is a response to Dimon's letter to shareholders that criticizes the debit fee rule as a policy "that has little basis in fact or analysis."

Durbin, the Senate's second-highest-ranking Democrat, has responded by arguing that swipe fee changes are long overdue.

"The wisdom of this reform is confirmed by the irrationality of the arguments that your industry raises against it, arguments that are based upon misrepresentations and threats rather than evidence or logic," wrote Durbin.

-By Maya Jackson Randall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6687, maya.jackson-randall@dowjones.com

Dell (NASDAQ:DELL)
과거 데이터 주식 차트
부터 6월(6) 2024 으로 7월(7) 2024