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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

Fed Report Provides Information on Debit Card Transactions in 2015

Federal Issues Federal Reserve Debit Cards EFTA Payments Data Collection / Aggregation

Federal Issues

On November 30, the Fed announced the release of its annual report on debit card transactions in 2015. The report is the fourth in a series to be published every two years pursuant to Section 920 of the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA). As in prior years, the 2015 report reflected that issuers’ costs of authorizing, clearing, and settling debit card transactions (excluding issuer fraud losses) varied greatly across respondents. Data compiled in the report estimates that debit-card fraud losses to all parties (merchants, cardholders, and issuers) increased by 44 percent from 2013 to an estimated total of $2.41 billion in 2015. The median covered issuer had average fraud prevention and data security costs of 1.9 cents per transaction.