Barring a schedule change, the Senate isn’t likely to have legislation pending this week to which an amendment delaying the implementation of the Federal Reserve’s interchange rule can be attached.
The Senate is scheduled to bring up legislation to extend the PATRIOT Act and no amendments will be allowed to be offered. After this week, the Senate goes into recess.
Although legislation to delay implementation of the Federal Reserve’s rule regulating interchange has been introduced in both chambers, House leaders have said they won’t act until the Senate does.
Last week, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) offered a compromise to delay the implementation by 15 months, a reduction from his original proposal of 24 months. The House legislation would delay the implementation by one year.
The Fed issued a draft rule in December and was supposed to issue a final rule next month but has been delayed in doing so because it is still going through the large number of comments it received on the proposal. The final rule is supposed to take effect in July.
Acording to the proposed rule, the allowable costs for interchange would be limited to no more than the issuer's allowable costs divided by the number of electronic debit transactions on which the issuer received or charged an interchange transaction fee in the calendar year. Or the issuer could receive debit interchange capped at 12 cents per transaction.
