The Durbin Amendment

On November 6, 2013, PYMNTS.com will present a conference in Washington, D.C. “The Durbin Amendment and the Regulation of the Debit Card Industry” where thought leaders from all sides of this debate will come together.

 

The debit card industry is in turmoil over regulations again. The Federal Reserve Board’s regulation of debit card interchange fees and routing went into effect on October 1, 2011 after a roughly year-long rule making process. But a few weeks ago a U.S. district court judge ruled that the Fed hade made serious errors—basically ignoring what Congress intended, favoring banks, and harming merchants. Depending on what happens on appeal interchange fee rates could plummet, or not, and banks could be forced to offer more routing alternatives on debit cards, or not. A wild card is whether Congress will step in or leave it to the courts to sort it out.

More than 20 speakers will address these complex issues including, National Retail Federation General Counsel, Mallory Duncan, who led the successful effort to persuade the district court to overturn the Fed’s rules; Dr. David S. Evans who has written extensively on interchange fee regulation and authored several submissions to the Federal Reserve Board during its rule making; lawyer Douglas Kantor who has represented the merchants in their assault on interchange fees; and NYU Professor of Law, Richard Epstein, one of the country’s top legal scholars who worked on a constitutional challenge to the Durbin Amendment.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER FACULTY

         

Mallory Duncan
SVP & General Counsel
National Retail Federation

David Evans
Chairman
Global Economics Group

Douglas Kantor
Partner

Steptoe & Johnson

Richard Epstein
Lawrence A. Tisch
Profesor of Law

NYU School of Law

ABOUT THE PROGRAM AGENDA

There’s much to debate and discuss about debit card regulation as merchant, banks, networks, and now the Fed engage in battle once again over the payment card that just about every American uses.

The program will take a look at what we’ve learned in the last two years about the Fed’s rules, examine the pros and cons of implementing the more aggressive Plan B routing requirements, consider the constitutional and administrative law issues swirling around after Judge Leon’s decision, and take a fresh look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of interchange fee regulation. The program will end with a debate, led by Karen Webster, CEO of Market Platform Dynamics, on reinventing the business deal between merchants and card systems.

VENUE & PROGRAM TIMING
This full, one-day conference will be held at The National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, 13th floor and will fun from  9am-5pm.

REGISTRATION FEES

  • Complimentary registration for Government Employees and Academics available,
    Please contact Pamela Bittner at
     pbittner@pymnts.com to reserve your seat.

For more information about the event, please contact Pamela Bittner at pbittner@pymnts.com.