U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor of the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota granted summary judgment in a federal lawsuit filed by truck stop and convenience store Corner Post in 2021 against the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System regarding Regulation II, the federal law governing debit card swipe fees. “Grocery customers and food retailers across the country won a critical victory in our fight against unreasonably high debit card swipe fees,” asserted Leslie G. Sarasin, president and CEO of FMI – The Food Industry Association. “The debit regulated rate was initially set by the Federal Reserve in 2011. Since then, the Fed’s own data has shown that banks’ costs to process debit card transactions have gone down dramatically but the rate charged to food retailers and all other merchants has not been adjusted.” Added Sarasin: “FMI remains hopeful that this ruling will spur the Fed to finalize its debit regulated rate rulemaking that lowers the rate and establishes a process for regular updates. Ensuring a ‘reasonable and proportional’ debit regulated rate, as required by law, is critically important to keeping prices low for customers in the slim-margined grocery industry.” “Doug Kantor, a member of the executive committee of the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores said “This case shows that banks have swiped a windfall of billions of dollars per year in debit fees from Main Street that go far beyond normal, competitive profit margins. The Federal Reserve should quickly rewrite its rules to cure this problem and reduce the inflationary pressure these fees impose on the entire US economy.” According to MPC, the proposal didn’t go far enough because it would lower the amount banks can charge by less than a third, even though banks’ average cost of processing a transaction has dropped by nearly 50%, from 7.7 cents just before the rate was set, to 3.9 cents as of 2021.