Originally Posted by
krazykanuck
Right, It's not necessairly PIN vs. no PIN but the knock on effect of this is the merchant cost. Not having a PIN would cause it to run as a credit/signature transaction which would make selling MOs this way (and for us MSing) unprofitable for the merchant, vs the flat fee debit card swipe fee.
Durbin caps debit fees regardless of the network used. However, for issuers with less than $10 billion in assets, the caps don't apply. (I don't think any of the gift card issuers are exempt from the caps, but I could be wrong.)
Also, if only that particular provision went away, I'd imagine surcharging and minimums would become even more common than it already has. They're only supposed to do it for credit cards, sure, but almost no business that does so differentiates in my experience.