OAK BROOK, Ill.–The Midwest Acquirers Association has invited Sen. Richard Durbin, author of controversial legislation that would cap debit card interchange fees, to speak at the group’s annual meeting this July in Oak Brook, Ill.
The senator wrote the so-called Durbin amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that included the mandate that the Federal Reserve Board set a debit card interchange rate that is “reasonable and proportional.”
“Often the controversial speaker is the best speaker,” says Mark Dunn, the association’s treasurer and the founder of Field Guide Enterprises LLC, a Hartland, Wis.-based consulting firm. “We would like to hear directly what the senator has to say.”
The association and the Illinois Democrat’s office have been in contact concerning the possibility of a speech at the event, which the group expects to attract hundreds of acquiring organizations, most of them from Illinois, Dunn says, noting many receive income from the discount rate applied to debit card transactions.
If the Fed imposes its proposed 12-cent debit-interchange cap as planned on July 21, the event’s attendees will have to reshape their businesses, he says. The average interchange fee currently is about 44 cents per transaction.
Meantime, financial-services companies have been lobbying to delay the deadline.
