Please note: This is one of the top five most read articles in the government relations news category for NACS News in 2011. View the original story here.

WASHINGTON - Today at the 3:30 EST the Federal Reserve Board of Directors will convene to discuss and vote on the final rules pertaining to debit card swipe fees.

The meeting will be live via webcast from the Fed's public website. You do not need to register to view the webcast. A link to the meeting documentation will also be available at approximately 3:10 EST prior to the start of the meeting. Both links may be accessed from the Board€™s public website at federalreserve.gov.

Conventional wisdom is that proposed rules should resemble final rules. The Federal Reserve, as in independent agency, cannot be influenced by politics and does not receive funding from the federal government. Therefore, should the final rule deviate too far from the proposed rule, the Fed€™s credibility is at stake.

With implementation of the Durbin amendment in 2010, the Federal Reserve was instructed to ensure that interchange fees were "reasonable and proportional" to issuers€™ costs and specific to processing an individual transaction €" and its survey found that the actual cost to process a transaction rang in at 4 cents. The proposed rule increased that amount to allow either 7 cents or 12 cents.

NACS hopes that the Federal Reserve will stick to the letter of the law and its proposed rule when formulating the final rule.

Be on the lookout later today for an update from NACS on the Fed€™s final debit card swipe fee rules. Once the rules are released, NACS will analyze the report and share topline findings in NACS Daily.