EBay Inc. has said that the proposed limits on debit card interchange fees should not immediately harm its payments operations.
To keep its costs low, eBay's PayPal Inc. encourages its customers to fund their payment accounts with automated clearing house transfers. However, some have predicted that ACH costs might rise in response to the Federal Reserve proposal to severely limit debit interchange pricing.
Bob Swan, eBay's chief financial officer, told analysts during a conference call Jan. 19 that even if ACH costs rise, its current partnerships should protect PayPal through 2012.
"We are pretty effective at managing the dynamics of the PayPal wallet to impact any specific changes," Swan said. "We give consumers a choice by leveraging technology and incentives."
If debit interchange fees decline, then PayPal, as a merchant, will save money, said Beth Robertson, the director of payments research at Javelin Strategy and Research.
