Chase to Reinstate Debit Rewards Program After Feds Delay Durbin Amendment

Chase has pulled a complete 180 on its previously announced decision to discontinue its debit card rewards program, and says that it will now no longer cancel the program in light of the federal government’s decision to delay enactment of interchange fee cap rules.

UPDATE: Because the bill to delay the rules were defeated, the Chase debit card rewards program will terminate as scheduled on July 19.

Chase (NYSE:JPM), the second largest U.S. bank by assets, is expected to reinstate its debit card rewards program.
“Chase had to make changes to the benefits we extend to customers due to the pending economic impact of the Durbin Amendment. If Congress delays the implementation of the new law to allow time for additional study of its impact, we will waive the service fee and continue the popular debit rewards benefit while they do so,” confirmed someone from the bank familiar with the matter.

The bank will now waive monthly checking account service fees for its customers who actively use their debit cards and continue its debit rewards program for all enrolled debit card holders, according to the individual.

Read: Chase Debit Card Ultimate Rewards Program Officially Over

Chase Bank announced earlier this year that it would no longer be offering new customers debit card rewards as a result of federal regulations seeking to limit the amount of interchange fees banks are able to charge by more than 70%. charge merchants. At the time, Chase indicated that its debit reward program was funded in large part by the interchange fees that it collects. Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and SunTrust (NYSE:STI) followed suit when both banks announced this past March that they would be ending their debit rewards programs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told House lawmakers last week that his agency wouldn’t be able to meet the April 21 deadline for finalizing the Durbin rule.

Lisa Westermann, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, told MyBankTracker.com that the bank wouldn’t be making any changes to its previously announced decision to end its debit rewards program until a rules had been finalized.

“We will continue to pay points until final rules are published and then we will make a decision at that time,” said Westermann in an email.

A representative for SunTrust couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

About the banks

Chase

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.2 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small busin...

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Unur

Wouldn’t Chase be “pulling a complete 180″ as they are reversing there opinion?

http://www.mybanktracker.com/ MyBankTracker.com

good catch
Cbrisson305

This is so much better….Obama is losing day after day.

Guest

What does this have to do with Obama? The only thing this has to do with Obama is that the gov’t is limiting upcharges the banks can charge customers and that’s why the banks can’t afford the debit card rewards programs any longer. Unless you are pro big-bank and anti-cnosumers, you should be pleased with the governments decision. I love how everyone tries to blame everything on Obama no matter what it is. Ridiculous.

Anonymous

So do I understand that “Cheap”….err I mean “Chase” is NOT doing away with the UR program now….at least until they get back some of the Millions of customers they lost, when they announced the cancellation of the program?
Why would they not send something out referencing their decision to reinstate the program. Or would be an un-cancellation notice… ; ) hee hee

I know my branch told me, they alone had 1000′s of people close their accounts. And therefore, I really hope it is not a ploy, simply to get some of those people back to Cheap…dang, I did it again….my bad!
Chase Customer

This story is false. I walked into my branch yesterday and the branch manager told me that as of 19 July the program is over and he has not heard anything from the higher ups that it would continue past this date. Since there was a statement to this fact in my June checking statement I am inclined to believe that it is officially over.