A new card from Fifth Third Bank promises to make the oftenroutine cashier question “debit or credit” a lot more important forconsumers who hold it and to bring the bank a strategy for gettingaround at least some of the Durbin Amendment interchange cap.

The question has long been vital to card issuers as theconsumer's response signaled whether a debit transaction would berouted as one authorized by a Personal Identification Number or bythe use of the cardholder's signature.

Debit transactions authorized by PIN brought a lower interchangerate and card issuers have often put incentives in place to try toinfluence consumers to choose credit, even if the consumers oftendidn't fully understand what their choice meant.

But, in the traditional card, no matter which authorizationmethod a consumer chose, the money would still come out of aconsumer's checking account to fund the transaction and the newFifth Third Bank card, dubbed the Duo card, would changethat.

Consumers who use the Duo card would still fund transactionsthey authorize with a PIN from their checking accounts, buttransactions they authorized with a signature would be funded by abank-provided line of credit, one with a credit card's financecharge and drawing the credit card's higher interchange income.

Thus the Duo card enables Fifth Third to move at least some ofits debit transactions authorized by signature outside the Durbin cap and allow it to preserve its higher interchange,as well as build finance charges and other fee income associatedwith credit cards.

Further, any transactions, such as those at restaurants, wherethere is no option to enter a PIN will automatically become creditcard transactions.

A spokesperson for the bank said that the additional interchangeincome aspects of the card had not been a factor in the card'sdevelopment and that the bank had developed the card after consumerresearch demonstrated demand for it.

“We have long had the capability to do this,” Stephanie Honansaid.