After striving to get a victory for a long time, retailers have finally come to see the light of day with an amendment concerning the fees extracted when debit and credit cards are used at retail stores. The Washington Post article, written by Brady, Dennis and Ylan Q. Mui, said that the amendment, which was passed on May 14, 2010, now gives retailers the right to control the fees that are charged whenever a customer uses a debit or credit card.

In the past, it was the credit card issuers who were controlling the fees charged per customer. The new bill, which was constructed by Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), in which some Republicans voted alongside of some of the Democrats, enabled the legislation to go forward. Now, retailers and possibly consumers will be able to keep more money in their pockets.

Another positive aspect of the Amendment is that the Federal Reserve will be given the job of deciding the size of fees that may be considered “reasonable and proportional.” In order to ensure that prices for card swipes stay low, the new bill gives a greater power to the retailer to be able to choose lenders with fees that are more appealing.

The banks have long fought against this legislation because of many billions of dollars it pulls in through this system every year. One group of retailers, the National Association of Convenience Stores, said that it paid $7.4 billion in swipe fees last year.

It really is not surprising that the banks have been fighting this legislation for so long. They have enjoyed a lack of regulation for so long in these areas and it has profited them immensely. They have long enjoyed lives of comfort and looking at people as sheep needing to be fleeced.

Retailers will certainly now be able to keep more money in their pocket, for which they will certainly be grateful. Being able to choose a lender with good prices for debit and credit card swipes is also a good way to make the industry want to offer competitive prices – at least in areas where competition is available.

The value of this legislation remains to be seen. It certainly is quite possible that the consumer may not see any difference at all. After all, how would the average consumer know whether or not the retailer is still charging the same as what they were charging before in order to provide the service? The new law may simply mean a shift of who is doing the fleecing, and the consumer ends up paying the same.

Interestingly, the banks have already declared that they would be passing this on to the consumer. Banks are now also being regulated more tightly concerning late charges and other credit card fees, and certainly will be passing on these losses, too. Of course, it really is no surprise that the banks are threatening to take it out on the consumers who take out their loans and mortgages and save money in their establishments. The bank CEO’s have already suffered a little from a smaller bonus this year – except for those who received it from their bailout money.

Before Senator Durbin had constructed the new amendment, he had agreed with banks and credit unions that it would exclude them if they had less than $10 billion in assets. Of course, this exemption probably means that the average consumer making purchases in smaller stores does not have a chance of any kind of savings. In fact, there really is no telling how few banks or other lenders this will really affect in a way that will matter to the consumer.