Whether you run your debit card as debit or credit, some banks may be putting a cap on how much you can spend per transaction.

Your Debit Card May Limited To $50.00 per Transaction

Imagine being in line at the store purchasing an item for $125.00 and you know you have more money than that in the bank.  However your card is declined not for insufficient funds but for spending too much money on your debit card.  So you try it again.  Now you tell the cashier credit please. However, you are still disappointed because the same decline message is returned; spending too much money in a single transaction.  Now instead of you swiping your card once you have to swipe your card three times.  This is because your bank will not let you charge more than $50.00 at one time.  This may sound farfetched but this could be you in the near future.

In 2010, President Obama signed the Wall Street Reform Act reducing the price banks may charge for debit card transactions from .44 to .12 per transaction.  According to the Federal Reserve, in 2009 alone, these 44 cents per swipe resulted in banks making $16 billion. Under the new reform, the reduction in the amount banks charge has resulted in losses of at least a billion dollars. As a result, banks have to find a way to make more money.

Joe Price of Bank of America said that when the banks take the hit economically and need to find a way to get their money back, they will likely end up doing so “by increasing the cost of everyday debit card transactions, limiting their payment choices, and impacting industry innovation.”

Other ways for banks to make more money is to impose more charges on their clients.   In some parts of America, Chase is imposing debit card fees of three dollars per month and checking account fees of fifteen dollars per month.

In reality the banks are upset because they can not make the billions of dollars it did the previous year’s therefore they must find the money somewhere else, their customers.   But let’s not forget it was their customers, the tax payers, who bailed them out when they needed it.  In return they give their executives and CEO’s lavish raises and bonuses and pass fee's along to their customers.