NEW YORK - One year ago President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul bill, which contained the Durbin Amendment to reform debit card swipe fees by ensuring that the fees charged for debit card purchases were "reasonable and proportional" to the cost of processing transactions. What the Fed concluded this year on June 29, however, is a 21-cent cap that deviated far from a 12-cent limit proposed in December, reports Bloomberg.

The news source writes that since the law took effect, the largest debit-card issuers, "which stand to lose billions of dollars in annual revenue under the Fed caps," have already begun to eliminate rewards programs and free checking ?" and that "new fees may be next in the effort to help make up the difference, according to analysts and executives."

Meanwhile, 7-Eleven franchisee Dennis Lane is still trying to calculate whether convenience retailers will receive any benefit at all.

"I honestly think we??re going to be close to where we were before Dodd-Frank," Lane told the news source of the Fed??s decision to cap fees at 21 cents per transaction. "That??s atrocious."

And although the Fed??s final rules could give U.S. convenience stores "an estimated $830 million to put back into the economy," the Fed could have and should have done more, said NACS spokesman Jeff Lenard.

For Lane, who attended President Barack Obama??s Dodd-Frank signing ceremony in Washington a year ago on July 21, the fight to reform card fees will continue, but for now he??s focusing on his operations.

"The first 20-odd cents of every transaction will go to the financial services industry and that??s not such a problem if you??re selling computers or wide-screen TVs or digital cameras," Lane told the news source, adding, "It??s a huge problem when you??re selling newspapers and coffee and donuts and candy bars."