The week ahead: Fed to finalize swipe fee limits

The Federal Reserve will try this week to put to rest the bitter fight over debit-card swipe fees.

The central bank is scheduled to issue a final rule Wednesday that will limit what banks can charge for processing debit-card transactions. The limits — mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law — have been one of the biggest lobbying battles of the 112th Congress, with banks and retailers squaring off over billions of dollars in revenue.

Attempts to delay the rules fell short in the Senate, so now it falls to the Fed to finalize its rules. A proposal on the fees put forward in December earned the ire of banks by setting caps of seven to 12 cents per transaction — a steep drop from the 44-cent industry average.

Banks want to see that cap raised, while merchants are urging the Fed to hold firm.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will kick off the week by meeting with Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. On Monday, the two will appear at a conference hosted by the Brookings Institution to discuss the economic and financial partnership between the two nations. They will follow up that event with a more formal meeting Tuesday at the Treasury.

Two congressional committees are taking their shows on the road. On Monday, the Senate Commerce Committee is heading to Chairman Jay Rockefeller’s (D) home state of West Virginia to discuss ways to improve the nation’s exports and boost domestic manufacturing.

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will set up shop in Hoover, Ala., to discuss ways law enforcement can help guard against hackers’ attempts to access private financial information. Hoover is home to the National Computer Forensic Institute, which trains law enforcement against cybercrime, and also falls within the district of committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.).

The Senate Commerce Committee will discuss the same issue Wednesday — this time in the nation’s capital.

On Tuesday, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee will mark up a spending bill for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs and other related agencies.

On the heels of a Supreme Court decision that blocked what would have been a landmark class-action discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to discuss how the high court’s ruling affects the behavior of corporations.

The Senate Banking Committee will hear from Sheila Bair, the outgoing chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), on Thursday. Her tenure at the banking regulator ends at the beginning of July, but before then she’ll offer lawmakers her take on the FDIC. Before that, the panel will hold a hearing Tuesday on housing finance. Lawmakers will pick the brains of several housing experts on how small financial institutions are faring in their efforts to access the secondary market for mortgages.

The Senate Finance Committee will kick off the week with a Tuesday hearing on ways to improve tax compliance and ensure the government gets what it is owed. Then on Thursday, members will hear from President Obama’s first director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, on ways to tackle the deficit.

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