With the supreme irony here being BoA initiated the fee in response to Democrat Dick Durbin passing an amendment limiting the fees banks can charge retailers, the banks warned over and over again they would have to pass the difference on to consumers which is exactly what happened and now Obama and the rest of the Dems are feigning outrage.
(The Hill) — President Obama joined fellow Democrats in blasting a new fee on debit card users announced by Bank of America, arguing that banks do not have an “inherent right” to a certain amount of profits.
The bank has come under a hail of criticism after it announced it would begin charging debit card users $5 a month, blaming the move on policymakers who curbed the amount of fees they could collect from retailers.
But Bank of America has pushed back, saying the economics of its debit cards had changed ever since the so-called “Durbin amendment” took effect at the beginning of the month, requiring the bank to impose new fees. That amendment — a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law — roughly halved the amount banks could charge retailers for swiping their debit cards, and was the subject of a fierce lobbying battle on Capitol Hill.
Democrats who backed the provision say banks simply want to protect robust profits, and the president seems to agree. “You don’t have some inherent right just to get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated,” he said in an interview with ABC News. “My hope is that you’re going to see a bunch of the banks saying to themselves, ‘You know what, this is not good business practices.'”
HT: Fox Nation