The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up a case asking the Federal Reserve to lower the cap on debit card “swipe fees,” The Hill reported. An amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act directed the Fed to set a “reasonable” cap on fees that banks charge merchants each time a customer swipes a debit card. Those fees must also be “proportional” to banks’ costs. Implemented in 2011, the Fed capped fees for financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets at 21 cents, with an additional 1 cent for fraud prevention and 0.05 percent for fraud recovery. The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal brought by the Corner Post, a North Dakota-based truck stop and convenience store, challenging the Fed’s cap on debit card swipe fees. The Corner Post joined the North Dakota Retail Association and the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association in the original 2021 case in the U.S. District Court in Bismarck. The plaintiffs argued the cap set was higher than the one Congress intended. The Fed originally proposed a 12 cent cap, but said it raised that cap after considering all industries impacted.
