Merchant groups target Tester on interchange fees

The ads accuse Tester, who has expressed concern about the provision, of siding with Wall Street banks over Main Street businesses.

“Big banks are dragging their feet and lobbying Congress to let them off the hook,” the ad states. “Now Sen. Tester is standing with Wall Street.”

The ad goes on to invite listeners to call Tester’s Helena office to tell him “too many jobs, too many businesses are at stake to let Wall Street swipe back their phony fees.”

Some lawmakers have suggested that the rulewriting process be delayed, giving the Fed time to study the issue further. Under Dodd-Frank, the Fed proposed rules in December, and is required to finalize them by April.

Under the central bank’s proposal, banks could only charge seven to 12 cents per transaction, a 73 percent drop from the current 44-cent average.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing in February, Tester told Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that he was concerned in particular about how the new rules might affect small banks.

“It would seem to me that there’s going to be undue harm done to smaller banks,” he said.

Although the provision exempts banks with less than $10 billion in assets from the new limits, Bernanke told lawmakers he had his doubts about the exemption, warning that small banks might still need to lower their fees to compete with big banks.

“It is possible that exemption may not be effective in the marketplace,” he said.