Community bankers are suffering from the costs of data breaches, according to a survey released Tuesday by America's Community Bankers.
A survey of 181 group members found that 70% had to reissue cards three or more times during the past 24 months as a result of data breaches, while 29% said they had to reissue cards five or more times.
The survey was conducted Jan. 26 to Feb. 5.
On average, it costs about $15 to reissue a debit card, so a bank reissuing 10,000 cards three times would spend roughly $450,000, ACB said.
"Unfortunately, it is the local community banks that are bearing the operational and reputation costs of the merchants' inability to protect consumer financial information," Michael T. Crowley, Jr., the chairman of the group's recently formed debit card fraud committee and the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Bank Mutual in Milwaukee, said in a press release.
The trade group is lobbying for legislation that would make the entity that caused a breach, like a retailer, responsible for covering the cost of reissuing bank cards. It also is asking the card associations to strengthen security standards and improve enforcement of existing ones.
