ATMIA RECOMMENDS CHANGES TO REG II TO INCREASE COMPETITION BETWEEN PAYMENT NETWORKS

SIOUX FALLS, SD, September 29, 2014.  The ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) announced today that it has released a new paper titled “An Industry Discussion: Should changes be made to Reg II in order to increase competition between payment networks?”  ATMIA has growing concerns that competition between payment networks is eroding due to the unintended consequences of the Durbin Amendment – both with how it was implemented and how it impacts EMV migration in the U.S.

Today, the setting of network fees and routing decisions are essentially confined within the relationships between networks and issuers, which works to limit competition.  ATMIA recommends adding language to Reg II, prohibiting restrictions on ATM operator routing selection, between the networks enabled on an issuers debit card.  This would create new competition between networks for routing selection by those operators and result in downward pressure on network fees.

ATMIA U.S. Executive Director, David Tente, and several ATMIA U.S. Board members met with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC on July 22nd.  Executive management for the Retail Payments Section of the Reserve Bank Operations and Payments Systems Division were present, along with legal counsel and one of their senior economists.

“This was a rare opportunity to help the Fed Board better understand the workings of our industry and the shifting of the competitive landscape for regional ATM networks,” said Tente.  “The paper being released today represents our efforts to frame this issue in a way that will help others in the payments industry to better understand why it is so important.”

ATMIA has provided a copy of the paper to the Federal Reserve Board and plans to keep the network competition and routing choice issues in the public spotlight.  The full paper is available for download from ATMIA’s U.S. website. 

About the ATM Industry Association
The ATM Industry Association is a global non-profit trade association with over 5,000 members in 65 countries.  Its mission is to promote ATM convenience, growth and usage worldwide, to protect the ATM industry's assets, interests, good name and public trust; and to provide education, best practices, political voice and networking opportunities for member organizations.   More information about ATMIA can be found on their website, www.atmia.com.