Debit Interchange Income Story Offered at No Charge Because Your Help is Needed

Press Release:

The flaws in the Debt Interchange regulation will be harmful to all credit unions. To help create changefour CU experts made a concise audio recording,explaining all facets of Debit Card, to encourage every credit union and its members to ask their Federal representatives to vote for 2 bills currently in Congress.  This recording is available at no charge.  There is little time to change this regulation, which may have the greatestnegative impact of anything in the current business environment. If it takes effect as written it will harm your CU’s financial health, and provide zero consumer protection, for as long as it exists. Carolyn Warden, John McKechnie and Hal Coxen shared their expertise in a conference call moderated by Dan Clark, a well-known CU consultant and consumer finance educator.  Clark produced a recording of this free conference call so everyone with an interest may have the information. The 55 minute audio recording “The Debit Interchange Story”  is available to credit unionist and trade associations at no charge by going to: http://www.danclark.com/schedule/learn-the-interchange-income-story.  Left-click the link to download the file to your PC to play it right then, or right-click-it to save it the MP-3 file to your hard drive. Then you can transfer it to your favorite mobile listening devise. Warden, a credit union profitability consultant,former NCUA examiner as well as participant in a family-owned business explained how the bulk of risk falls on financial institutions while the merchants get huge cost-savings as well as increased gross sales from debit card purchases vs. cash or checks.  McKechnie, a respected credit union lobbyist, explained what message federal elected officials need to hear from their constituents to convince them to stop the Fed regulation slated to take effect July 21, 2011.  The Federal Reserve, which was charged with creating this regulation in a very short time frame, admits that the regulation and the research behind it are flawed. Coxen, VP Marketing & Business Development of Consumers Credit Union shared their effective campaign in engaging voters to ask for change from their congressional representatives.  A copy of the email Coxen developed for this campaign is available, free of charge, on www.carolynwarden.com/freebies .  Contact with Federal elected officials is needed now for there to be any hope for change.  The four experts who contributed to this free educational session believe it is worth your time and effort to prevent special interests including the largest retailer in the world, from introducing government-determined price-controls!   Regardless of your party affiliation or economic philosophy this regulation has no benefits for people. If implemented as written this regulation will reduce Debit Interchange 73%, below the cost of processing these transactions for the vast majority of financial institutions.  Further, the law mandating this makes no allowance for the costs of protecting consumers’ financial transactions or personal information which cannot be separated from Debit Card use.    This reduction in expense reimbursement will force many credit unions to either cut services, charge fees for is now free, or both.  Anything that limits consumers’ choices’ and financial protections’ cannot be good for America or Americans. For additional information you may contact Carolyn Warden at 224-656-6081 orcarolyn.warden@live.com. John McKechnie can be reached at 202-544-9601 or jmckechnie@totalspectrumsga.com.