Bank of America’s debit card fee will be a bonanza for credit unions.
I'm in the process of doing exactly that to Wells Fargo.
If their cards will even be accepted. Because CUs and small banks aren’t subject to this regulation, their switching fee can be what they currently are; nearly twice the price fixed rate. That means a merchant has to pay 40 cents to swipe that CU card vs. 20 cents for BOFA. Will the merchant eat the bigger fee on the small bank card because he makes it up on the artificially government fixed one; we’ll see? When government forces someone to give a free lunch, the cost just shifts to someone else - ALWAYS. If everyone piles into small banks to avoid the debit card fee, they’ll have to change the regulation to cover them too. The system is not static.