Credit unions and banks are as important to the economy as utilities and therefore when the Fed regulates them they should be subject to limited controls on prices.

That's the argument made by coalition of credit unions, banks and other financial services providers in a friend of the court brief  filed on behalf of TCF National Bank's lawsuit against the Durbin Amendment's mandate that the Fed set limits on debit interchange fees.

The brief argues that credit unions and banks are "sufficiently akin to public utilities'' to be subject to the protection of the confiscatory-rate doctrine, which allows entities whose prices are regulated by the government to recover fixed and variable costs, plus a reasonable rate of return, to compensate for its investments.