The MerchantPayment Coalition argues that the PULSE 2013 Debit Issuer Study did not include enough smallasset issuers to draw any conclusions about small issuerinterchange.

The PULSE ATM/Debit Network is a Discover-owned network whichincludes large banks, community banks and credit unions.

Its most recent study found that smaller asset debit issuerstook a two-cent hit to their debit card interchange on a pertransaction basis as a result of the debit interchange cap put intoplace by the Durbin Amendment.

The organization of retailers and retail associations formed toadvocate for lower card interchange took issue with the study onthe grounds that it included only 38 smaller asset debit cardissuers and because PULSE has not yet released any data about howthose issuers were chosen.

“We don't know whether there was bias in their selection orwhether they were representative of the segment as a whole,”observed Doug Kantor, counsel to the MPC. Kantor alsoobserved that the study held that the financial institutionssurveyed were still making money from their debit programs, even ifturned out that debit interchange slipped on a per transactionbasis, a suggestion Kantor did not accept.

Kantor pointed out that federal agencies have not found similarresults from their studying of the issue and he added that, unlikePULSE, the Federal Reserve can gather data from allbanks.

“The Fed has a lot more data,” he said.