An Important Message...

ACTION ALERT Stop Interchange Amendment in Conference Committee Last week, the U.S. Senate approved the Financial Regulatory Reform Bill. The bill included the interchange amendment that directs the Federal Reserve Board to limit fees that merchants remit when customers pay with debit cards. This is an extremely negative amendment with potentially drastic effects on the bottom line of credit unions. We have one more shot to have this amendment removed from the bill --- in the House-Senate Conference Committee, which will meet in the coming days. Credit unions can beat the big retailers on this issue only by overwhelming them with our grassroots strength. To do that, 100% of your employees and Board members must send e-mails to legislators. We also ask you to consider e-mailing this communication to your membership, so they can voice their opposition to the amendment. Our goal is to have at least 3% member penetration across the state. During our first two grassroots efforts on this issue, 1,936 contacts were generated by Ohio credit unions to our U.S. Senators (part of 36,000 made across the nation). To win on this issue, we must dramatically increase our numbers. If you participated in the first two waves, you must do so again, and significantly increase your participation rate. If you did not participate, NOW is the time to take action. Here is the message you can send to your employees, volunteers and membership . . . Background This credit union incurs significant expenses in operating our card payment system. For example, we are responsible for administration, customer call centers, and reissuing cards in cases of merchant fraud. Each time you use your credit union credit card or debit card, a merchant is paid immediately and the card receives "interchange" through a card payment system. This interchange system reflects a merchant's fair share of the costs of this payment system. Last week the U.S. Senate approved the Financial Regulatory Reform Bill, and the bill contains an interchange amendment which would limit fees that merchants pay when customers pay with debit cards. This amendment would allow retailers to shift their cost of doing business on to you, our credit union member. Our credit union would be forced to raise rates and fees, or even curtail debit card offerings in the future. Merchants and big banks could set rates that would make it impossible for this credit union to compete. In the end, merchants could refuse to accept your credit union debit card! And there is no guarantee that merchants will pass along any cost savings to the consumers. This morning’s USA Today has an article in the Money Section entitled “If stores pay less for card use, will you?” Action Needed Please send a message today to Senators Brown and Voinovich, along with your U.S. Representative, urging them to oppose inclusion of the Senate-passed interchange provision in the financial reform bill. A prewritten letter is available at:http://capwiz.com/cuna/home/, where you can personalize and send an email. (This message will be directed to the appropriate legislators based on the address you enter.) Thank you for your participation in this critically important grassroots effort!