A recent Wall Street Journal article uncovered “small banks pay more per card in reissue costs than their larger peers.”
According to the article, banks with less than $1 billion in assets pay roughly $11 per debit card and $13 per credit card to replace a customer’s card, whereas banks with more than $50 billion in assets pay roughly $3 to replace both debit and credit cards. Smaller institutions are coming together to try and change current practices where card networks such as Visa and MasterCard negotiate settlements with merchants that have suffered a data breach, then distribute the proceeds to financial organizations that were affected.
Smaller organizations argue that this process works in the favor of big banks that are already in a better position to absorb the costs of having to reissue cards. The issue came to the surface again recently after a settlement was reached with Target “that would see the retailer provide $19 million to card issuers to cover breach-related losses.” However, smaller banks recently asked a federal judge to allow them to seek additional compensation because the current settlement would only cover a “minimal portion of the actual damages.”