I could really do with a lot more transparency from the Fed on why exactly it’s decided to almost double the maximum permitted debit interchange fee. The bank lobby certainly had a lot to do with it — but the bank lobby always said that the Fed was simply doing what it was forced to do under the Durbin amendment to Dodd-Frank, and that therefore Dodd-Frank itself had to be changed.
When the Durbin amendment survived, however, suddenly the banks realized they had a Plan B — to lobby the Fed. And the Fed, it turns out, is even more susceptible to such lobbying efforts than Congress is. The sole dissent among the Fed governors was from Elizabeth Duke, who said that the new fee was too low.
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