Durbin and Miller take swipe at greedy banks

From Huff Post:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Rep. Brad Miller are going on the offensive against Bank of America after the financial behemoth cited Wall Street reform in announcing a new five dollar monthly debit charge last week. Miller, a Democrat from BofA's home state of North Carolina, plans to introduce legislation that would make it easy for consumers to switch banks and simultaneously swap their direct deposit, electronic bill paying and other automatic features that make moving money from one bank to another more hassle than it's often worth.

Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, meanwhile, is encouraging consumers to abandon the bank's debit card. "My word to consumers across America is talk with your feet, look for a debit card that doesn't charge the Bank of America fee," Durbin told HuffPost, adding that the revenue from the new fee likely far outstrips what they'll lose to swipe fee reform. "It would be no surprise if we found out that Bank of America is overcharging consumers again. They've been found guilty of that in the past, but I really encourage consumers across America to look for competition that doesn't charge this fee, move their debit cards."

This is the most important part of the article:

On Saturday, the Federal Reserve instituted a 24 cent cap on swipe fees, estimating that running the card costs banks between 7 and 10 cents per swipe. The cap is roughly 20 cents lower than the average swipe fee had been previously.

So it costs banks around 7 to 10 cents every time a debit card is used. But the banks charge around 44 cents. If my rusty math is correct, that's at least a 340% profit in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression.

That's what the banks are complaining about. Durbin is "only" letting them have a 140% profit. And Bank of America just can't live with that.