Compliance Blog

Written by Steve Van Beek

On Friday, VISA and MasterCard announced a large settlement regarding credit card interchange fees.  This setttlement culminates numerous years of lawsuits related to credit card interchange (which easily predates the Durbin Amendment and the debit card interchange debate).  Numerous news outlets - including the Washington Post - have additional details on the background.  The settlement still needs to be approved by merchants and their class representatives.  

The settlement itself includes:

• $6.05 billion in payments to merchants; 
• A 10 basis point reduction in interchange fees for 8 months (beginning sometime in 2013); and
• Merchants will now be able to apply a "checkout fee" (surcharge) to transactions where consumers pay with a credit card.  

The surcharge was previously prohibited by VISA and MasterCard rules.  There are approximately 10 state laws that would still ban these credit card surcharges - although you can bet merchants will lobby to change those laws.  

For additional details and information, check out the NAFCU Today.  

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NAFCU Webcasts.  I wanted to quickly mention three upcoming NAFCU webcasts that might be of interest.

• July 18th - Using Your Credit Union's Incidental Powers Wisely
• August 8th - Master Your Exam: Issues, Tips and Insight from NCUA
• August 15th - Security Incident Response - Lessons Learned

Additionally, if you missed it - you can still purchase and view the on-demand version of our July 11th webcast - Regulatory Compliance Update: New Developments and Hot Topics - which includes a 30-40 minute overview of the latest mortgage proposals from the CFPB.  Note - the July 11th webcast is 2 full hours.  

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Congressional Caucus.  Friday, July 20th is the last day to Save $100 at NAFCU's Congressional Caucus - September 11-14 in Washington, D.C.  If you or someone at your credit union is planning on attending, now is the time to sign up.