FDIC Chair OK w/Market Control of Interchange Posted by AVCU on 1:10 PM

In a CNBC interview focused on community banks, FDIC chairman Sheila Bair said she gets nervous when the government tries to start doing rate regulation. She sees trouble with the Durbin interchange mandate to the Fed and would be okay with the market setting interchange instead of government. See the interview below.

Bair delivered testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last month and said that the interchange controls could harm small financial institutions far more than they would help merchants. CUNA President Bill Cheney last week called for the Fed to stop, study, and start over on interchange fee regulations and encouraged members of Congress to strike a legislative remedy that will ensure a meaningful interchange fee carve-out. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) repeated the call for delay during CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) last week. The interchange fee regulations, which could limit the amount of interchange fees charged per purchase to as little as 7 cents, are currently set to come into effect in July.