Originally Posted by
cbn42
Prices to rise? Do you have any evidence for this?
It looks like
Durbin hasn't had much of an impact on reducing prices and in fact might have caused more merchants to impose surcharges and minimums:
The results further suggest that the regulation had a limited effect on retail prices. Averaging across all sectors, it is estimated that the vast majority of merchants in the survey (77.2 percent) did not change prices post-regulation, very few merchants (1.2 percent) reduced prices, while a sizable fraction of merchants (21.6 percent) increased prices. Finally, the results also suggest a limited and unequal impact on changing debit card restrictions (in terms of minimum amounts, surcharges, and discounts for nondebit payment options), with an estimated 76.6 percent of merchants not changing them postregulation, 12.4 percent increasing them, and 10.9 percent decreasing them. Each of the above results varied significantly by sector.
...
For merchants in the sample who reported that their costs decreased after the Durbin regulation, few of them reduced prices or debit restrictions. This behavior remains a puzzle that deserves further research. On the other hand, if a merchant reported increased costs after the Durbin regulation—as a sizeable fraction of them did—it tended to raise prices and increase debit restrictions, especially in terms of setting a minimum transaction amount requirement.
The interesting thing is that for those who have reduced their transaction costs, surcharges/minimums haven't received a corresponding decrease. I wonder if there could be more at play with merchants' relationships with the card networks than how much they have to pay to accept their products.
Originally Posted by
storewanderer
Kroger has been increasing prices like crazy in Smiths the past couple months. 20%+ increases all over the store on pet foods, canned goods, etc. Perhaps they will drop the prices back to the "before" levels once they cut off Visa next month. They used to be within 5-10% of WinCo's prices. Not anymore. I get better deals now at Raleys who has never been known as even remotely a price operator.
Maybe, maybe not. We'll see.
Originally Posted by
mikesyr18
Can merchants give a discount when the customer chooses PIN debit over "credit" when using a debit card at the register? This would also increase competition and could possibly save the store some money, although I'm not sure how much exactly.
Considering that most debit cards have the same interchange (0.05%) regardless of how they're run, there's not much point in doing that.
Originally Posted by
mikesyr18
But prices used to be much higher until T-Mobile came in and undercut everyone else. Now you can get a single line with unlimited data, talk, and text for $80 a month because competition (even in an oligopoly) can help lower prices.
The US still has some of the highest mobile phone costs in the world. In other countries with actual mobile competition (read: 4+ viable carriers), rates tend to be at least half of what they are here, if not lower.
Also, T-Mobile was only able to be as big as they are now because of their failed merger with AT&T. Turns out a significant breakup fee can give a carrier enough money for needed network upgrades.
Originally Posted by
mikesyr18
the addition of monthly maintenance fees on checking accounts, an increase in checking account fees
I feel like those were a thing before Durbin.