Declaration of Electronic Deposit Access Independence

By PYMNTS | July 1, 2011

By Tim Attinger (Managing Director, Market Platform Dynamics)

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for consumers to dissolve the commerce ties which have connected them with their deposit accounts, and to assume among the aisles of retailers, the separate and perhaps equal value to which the laws of payments and payments providers entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of Ben Bernanke and Richard Durbin requires that those consumers should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these PYMNTS truths to be self-evident, that all forms of accessing funds at hand are not created equal, and that many are endowed by their Creators and Managers with certain unalienable value propositions, that among these are speed, convenience, reliability, and the pursuit of better record keeping.

Ask the Industry: What payments instrument will you “declare independence from” this year?

That to secure these rights, payments systems are instituted between consumers and retailers, deriving their just powers from the consent of both parties to the platform. That whenever any form of payments instrument becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the consumer or the retailer to abolish it, and to institute new payments forms, laying their foundation on such principles and value exchange as to those two parties shall seem the most likely to affect their safety and happiness…To prove this, let these facts be submitted to a candid world, that:

1) We have never liked sending a merchant money from our checking accounts today when later this week would be better

2) We don’t need the speed and convenience benefits of electronic payments in non-face-to-face environments (gas stations, parking garages, self-checkout at the supermarket, online, bill pay, etc)

3) We have never liked having relevant and timely offers to us generated from our electronic transaction activities

4) We do not want the benefits of online/realtime record keeping and balance information

5) We have never truly appreciated, nor sought out, the privilege of free access to our deposit accounts from anywhere in the world at any time for any purpose, and that

6) We believe for the benefits listed we should not rightly pay for the privilege of paying a retailer for our purchases (ie: help me help you charge me for paying you)

We, therefore, the representatives of the United Debit Consumers of America, in General Frustration, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Chairman of the Federal Reserve, for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these commerce segments, solemnly publish and declare, that we united customers are, and of right ought to be free to go back to writing CHECKS; that we are absolved from all allegiance to Debit Cards, and that all behavioral and commercial connection between us and the benefits of Debit, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent consumers, we have full power to delay payments, take commerce backward, destroy digital payments evolution, and pay retailers in a late, costly, inefficient, and often insufficient manner, which independent consumers now carrying the costs of electronic payments may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and of the CFPB, we mutually pledge to each other our now more complicated lives, our now more meager fortunes, and our sacred honor.