Dick Durbin Faces Off Against Allen Kopelman | Electronic Fund Transfer Act | B2B Vault

We're live now, Justin.

What's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast with your host Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about business payments, fintech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses use in today's world. And in today's Fintech Fridays, or Funtech Fridays, uh, Allen is going to be going up against Dick Durbin. Uh, again, Dick Durbin with the nonsense, pulling in all kinds of weird bills into the, uh, into the fold. And, uh, yeah, man, it's got me heated. My, my glasses are foggy. I don't know much about it. But from what I could tell, it's got Allen— he's been on fire all day. Looks like he's got steam coming out of his ears. It's been kind of nuts.

It's definitely fire, dude. Oh, yeah. Adjust our screen over here. So if anybody wants to ask us a question, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so we got to make sure people can ask questions because we're live on Facebook and LinkedIn.

And TikTok.

And TikTok. So if you got a question, you'll be able to type it in and we'll see it, right? Yeah. Or do you have to adjust something?

Yeah, I can see it. So you don't worry about it. Go live.

Okay, we're live. So this morning— well, actually yesterday, you know, there was this whole rumbling.

We have technical difficulties with TikTok. Next time.

Okay, you want to try it on my phone?

No, we're live. Let's go. Come on.

So I see that there's this whole thing going on in Congress, and I actually thought, like, I would get, like, the document and it would be, like, some massive document, but it's only 3 pages and then a little bit, a few sentences on the 4th page. So it was very easy to read. So I started reading this thing, and it was a— the title was— it's just very confusing because they mentioned all sorts of bills and regulations in here. So they say this is to amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to require the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to prescribe regulations related— relating to the network competition and credit card transactions and for other purposes. I, I like, you know, other purposes because that just leaves it wide open, right? And then It starts to mention in here what, what is this going to do. So they're saying they don't want to have an exclusive— says no exclusive network. There's not an exclusive network now. This is why, like, I don't believe that the Congress really understands how credit card processing works, because then they would know that there's no exclusive network. I mean, they really need Um, they really need to get a lesson in how a transaction— what works, what's really going on, and how this business works. And they act like Visa's owned by one mystery person, and MasterCard's owned by a mystery person, and Discover's owned by a mystery person, and American Express is owned by some secret person. It's not run by anybody at all. It's— these companies are publicly traded companies. The public owns all these companies, right? The public owns all the banks. The public owns all the credit card processing companies. The public owns Visa and MasterCard. If you have a 401, it's probably in there. You have an IRA, it's probably in there. A mutual fund, an EFT, you know, those things are made up of hundreds of hundreds of stocks. So everybody basically owns these companies. It's not owned by one person where there's like one evil empire. So it's saying that there's no later than one year from the enactment of this, they want to have, um, other credit card— they want to have some another network. So I was thinking to myself, what are they talking about, another network, right? And then they go in and they definitely, they want to— such networks that hold the two largest market shares. So they're referring to Visa and MasterCard without really naming them. And then they go on to say about, you know, licensed members of the networks, you know, and the board is going to determine, you know, who prescribes regulations. I don't understand any of that. That it's right, like they're gonna prescribe regulation to a business.

Two such networks that hold the two largest market shares with respect to the number of credit cards issued to the United States by licensed members of such networks and enabled to be processed through such networks as determined by the board on the date on which the board prescribes the regulations. I, if I don't, that's just a whole bunch of—

well, they could say whatever they want. I mean, first of all, Visa and MasterCard don't directly process any transactions. So that's why I say they don't understand the business. They just literally don't understand the business, you know. And then it goes on to talk about like after 3 years, something that, you know, things have to take effect. But then I got down to the started getting down into here, and they talk about no routing restrictions. No later than 1 year after the date, the board shall prescribe regulations providing that covered card issuer or payment network shall not directly make, you know, directly through any agent, processor, or licensed member of the network, by contract requirement, condition, penalty, or otherwise, inhibit the ability for any person or, I guess, business to accept credit card payments in the direct routing. So they keep talking about this mystery network. So then I got down a little further.

Network, right?

Well, it's not a mystery because I figured it out. So then they get down and they go, applicability. So I go, oh, what's all that about? Regulations prescribed under subparagraphs A and B shall not apply to a three-party payment system. So I was like, I don't even know what that is. I Googled it, I couldn't find it. And then it said, no later than, uh, after a year the enactment, the board, with the consultation of the Secretary of Treasury, shall prescribe more regulations and establish a list of any payment network. So they're going to make the list of who the payment network are, which makes no sense. I mean, these are public businesses. People are out there, you know, this is out there. So then they say, um, they can't do it, cannot be operated or sponsored by a foreign state entity. So that means a foreign government. Now they give the definition of what a three-party system is. So I started to read this. The payment card network also serves as a card issuer. And then the bell started ringing in my head and it says no licensed member of the payment network is an issuer other than the payment network itself. So then, and with assets of over $100 billion. So the light went off in my head and I said, I spent an hour, okay, and I could not remember the name of this lawsuit. So I went on an antitrust website. Started putting in all the names I could think of that were involved, and bingo, there it was. 2006, there was an antitrust lawsuit that was First Data— was Visa USA versus First Data, which is now Fiserv. So they changed the name of their company. And what is this? The, the bill they decide— the courts decide it's antitrust. So what, so what was that all about? Now we know what the secret network is because First Data basically wanted to have what they called on-us transactions. I was trying to explain it to Justin, but basically the on-us transactions, a better word to— this is an explanation of what on-us is. On-us refers to a check or payment. So that could be a credit card payment. That is deposited or processed by the bank issuing it. So the same bank issuing the card is processing the card or initiating the payment. Because the transaction remains within a single bank, it's preferred for lower expenses and added ability to profit from it. So basically, First Data in this lawsuit was trying to do these transactions where they would be able to direct, let's say, the bank. Let's say— and they have the largest alliance of banks, right? I still call them First Data even though it's Fiserv, but they have the largest alliance of banks. If you go look it up online, I mean, there's dozens of banks that are aligned up with First Data for credit card processing. So they could come— Fiserv— so they could, uh, basically say, well, let's say I bank at Chase. And they could come to Chase, could come to me and say, oh, well, you want to process your cards through First Data because essentially all the Chase business cards that come through your business, Justin, would go on this special on-us rate. And they could determine whatever that rate is because they're basically going to cut out the credit card processor, the processor that processes the credit cards now. The clearinghouse, the settlement bank, everything. They're going to just cut everybody out of the system and not pay Visa and MasterCard. So how Dick Durbin thinks he's going to do that, right? Somebody needs to remind him that in 2006 this was already tried, right? And they ruled it that it was an antitrust violation, and that was the end of that. And Visa prevailed in the lawsuit.

Go Visa!

Go Visa! Yeah, don't think Visa like is this evil company. They're being blamed right now for— I saw one senator on TV and they're blaming Visa for inflation. So they said, well, how can you blame Visa for— oh, well, they're processing a record number of payments. Okay, well, a year ago or so, right, gas was a under $2, right?

What was it?

Yeah, it was like $2 or less a year ago. Oh, a couple years ago.

Okay, we'll say 3 years ago.

Okay, so 2, 3 years ago was $2 a gallon, let's just say. Now we already saw gas up at $5, now it's like around $4. So essentially, let's just say it's doubled, right? Okay, well, if, if you have a million people, probably more than that, charging gas, right? And used to fill up your gas tank for $30, and now your gas tank, it takes $60 or more to fill up your gas tank. Right, right. Obviously Visa is going to process more payments if you go to the grocery store, right? We talk about this all the time, food prices, right, with inflation, right? You go to the grocery store and your grocery bill used to be $100 and now it's $150., right? And you're putting that on your card. Yeah. Okay, well, how is that Visa's fault? That's not Visa's fault or MasterCard.

I mean, Visa's not pricing the products, right?

That's what I mean. So it's not their fault. But they're— meanwhile, Congress is trying to blame inflation on everybody except for what's really going on. Yeah, for what the Fed— the policies that they have going on. I mean, we're having a repeat of some really crazy stuff that goes back to even when Jimmy Carter was in office and there was, you know, massive lines at gas stations and shortages and all kinds of stuff. Terrible. I don't want to see any of that. So, so, you know, I think everybody, you know, they try to write stuff in a really confusing way. I mean, we can put, uh, I gotta find the public link to this, this 4-page document, but, you know, I really had to read it like 3 or 4 times because I was like, what's this other network they're talking about? You know, other— where, where are you going to get another network? Listen, Visa and MasterCard started a business. They enabled banks to issue credit cards, which they were never able to do before, to process payments electronically, collect the payments, fund the merchants, right? Do all these great things. They help— they basically made the business of credit card processing. Right? So they made the business, right? They invented it, right? And then now the banks want to say, no, you can't— we don't want to be partner with you anymore. We're just gonna, you know, process our own credit cards.

You see that all the time.

I don't know.

Well, I mean, like in business.

Well, you see in business people try to cut somebody out and then there's a lawsuit.

So sounds like there's going to be one big lawsuit coming up here.

Yeah, well, I think, I, I think, like, you know, I actually shared this information with some people today, and they were like, they were shocked because I was like, yeah, there was already a lawsuit that was very similar in what was described on this, you know.

Well, when he's— when Allen showed me the— if you look at the verbiage of the old, the, the Visa lawsuit, and then, or like the bill that was what they were trying to do, and you look at that one, there's not much different, right?

It's the same thing. They're talking about the same exact thing. They're just doing it in a sneaky way, saying there needs to be competition.

There's already competition though, right?

There is. People can go to any credit card company. There's thousands of credit cards.

You're not really explaining why it's the, the way— you didn't break it down the way that You broke it down for me with the small banks.

Oh yeah, so basically this— any of the bank— like, so they're saying banks with $100 billion can do this.

All right, wait, so, so right now you got Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and Discover.

Those are the, the big card networks, the big card networks.

Then your bank, right, wherever you bank with PNC, they might offer you a Visa, right? Card— Visa card, credit card, not a debit card.

Take it off. Yeah, so they give you the card and basically they pay Visa like a franchise fee for having the Visa logo on, right? For having the Visa logo on.

But it's still a PNC credit card, right? Backed by PNC, right?

They're the ones on the hook for if you don't pay your bill, right? And all that, their PNCs.

People don't— I don't think people really understand.

Yeah, so they say like all this interchange is being collected.

What is interchange?

Interchange are the fees that Visa— that the banks actually designate how much interchange they want from each transaction. So they're getting the biggest piece of the pie. Now they just want to cut out Visa. Visa is making peanuts. Right, on all these transactions, in essence. Right. But they're the marketing vehicle behind credit card processing. That's a brand name, right, to market it. But listen, Chase can go out, or PNC, and go make the PNC card, build out a whole nother network, right, and then process the PNC card. It's not going to work. So to give you a little—

well, it could work, but it'll take a really long time.

Let me give you a context. Of something. So in 2000, when I first got into this business, 1999, and then 2001, and then around 2000, I, I wrote like a bunch of notes. I think it's 2003. So there was a big lawsuit where, where in 2003, um, Walmart and Visa got into a big lawsuit, and then Visa basically was forced into creating check card rates. So special rates for the check cards where the money's coming right out of the bank account. And that was great because two things happened. Merchants got money back because of it and they paid lower fees, right? If they were on interchange pass-through pricing, right? So they saved money and that was great. Then you have this Durbin Amendment 2010. And that caused more harm than good because it was touted that it was going to help small businesses, and it's not— didn't really help small businesses because it basically made—

when you look at the math, dude, it's like, wow, it is blatantly not helping small businesses, right? It's absolutely helping the big box stores.

Yeah, the big box stores. It's helping the big box store. It's like in a small business, like let's say they're processing a $7 or $8 transaction, you got to make it even easier. And it was costing them what, like a $10 transaction?

I don't know, I'm just saying.

So like, no, no, like here, I wrote it down. So if someone had a $7 transaction, right, and the small ticket interchange back in the day was 165 or 155 and 4—

what, you're going fast—

that's the interchange.

All right, so The item is this bottle of water, 7 bucks, right?

But I'm just— when you use your credit card, the trend, the interchange fee was about 16 cents. After Durbin, it went to 23 cents.

Who would split that 16 cents? No, nobody.

That all goes— interchange goes all back to the card issuing bank.

Okay, so what we were saying earlier. So say I'm PNC and I give you my PNC credit card, right? I get that 16 cents.

Yes.

Off every transaction that business is making.

Well, whatever the interchange— let's say you had one that gave rewards and that one was 2%, PNC gets back the 2%. So they get the majority. The banks are getting the majority of the, of the money for credit card processing.

The difference between the amount of what the small business was getting and how it affected them as opposed— it affected the this, right?

So they were paying 20— then that— then with Durbin Amendment got rid of this small ticket interchange, stuck them with the Durbin interchange, 0.05 and 22 cents.

So 0.5% interchange fee plus 22 cents off every transaction, right?

That was— that's 23 cents. So they were spending 7 more cents per transaction And I did it on $30,000 in sales a month. Yeah, $30,000 in sales at $7. Let's say about 4,286 sales times $0.07, $300 increase in interchange.

So the small business is losing $300, right? Losing after this Durbin Amendment, right?

Versus, let's say, this is crazy.

This is the crazy part.

Now let's go look at a big box store like a—

small businesses voted for this, right?

Right. Small businesses. Thought they were going to get something, but they didn't. They got screwed. That's what all—

got to read between the lines, ladies and gentlemen.

They say this is going to help small businesses. It's not. This other thing— so what—

so then anytime they said this, this is going to help small business, you got to just flip it and be like, this is going to hurt small business, right?

Well, look at what they did in the lockdown. They made the small businesses close and they let big businesses be open. In Florida, thank you, Ron DeSantis, they tried— you tried to get business— you know, small businesses were able to be open.

They did for the most part, right?

He tried.

They did try.

He tried. I'll give him credit for that.

Other places, other places were really bad.

People suffering.

Now, I know plenty places back home in Milwaukee that are no longer existing, right?

Because lots of them— I see, you know, many states where there was complete lockdown of the small businesses. In Las Vegas, in California, Michigan, New York, lots of places were not able to be open unless they defied You know, you had to break the law sometimes, right? Well, they did. Some of them did, and they were able to stay open. Some didn't, and they went out of business. So here's the part which really got me upset with this.

This is the part where he wants to take Dick Durbin in the back, like, hey, and he exposes his rage.

Biden wanted to take Trump outside and have a fistfight with him, you know. You know, I can have a boxing match with him.

Oh, a celebrity boxing match with Dick Durbin. I got my money on Allen Kopelman.

So here's where the kicker is, where big businesses made out better. So businesses with like a $100 average ticket— I mean, you go to the grocery store, you go to Target, you go to Walmart, you're going to drop $50 to $100 in there, right? So let's take a $100 ticket pre-Durbin on a debit card. The interchange was 1.03% and $0.15. So $1.18 of interchange off every transaction. Then post-Durbin, big businesses get on $100, $0.05 and $0.22, cost $0.27. So it's $0.27. The business saves $0.91 a transaction on a $100 transaction.

And so the small business had to pay on that same—

no, they were looting.

That's what I'm saying.

No, the small business was getting advantage on a $100 transaction, but a lot of small businesses do small transactions.

Oh, right. Yeah, right. I get that. I'm just saying. So like, but I understand what you're saying.

I'm sorry. Right. So on the small transactions, they were getting screwed. And the bigger transactions— in fact, there was a guy who made a website because all these businesses promised, oh yeah, if you do this, Dick Durbin, you know, I remember 7-Eleven was one of the companies Walmart was one company. There was another— oh, we're going to lower prices because we're going to save all this money, right? I mean, when you think about it, they save 91 cents on $100. That's not like—

that's not a lot of money.

It's not a lot of money, but still, at the same time, the promise they're going to lower prices— they didn't do anything. There was a guy made a website called wheresmydebitdiscount.com. It doesn't exist anymore. I wish it was still up, you know, so we could show it to people and expose what was on that website, but they named all the major companies who promised that they were going to lower prices, and they didn't lower any prices. They didn't lower any jack, right? So now you have this whole thing, right, where, oh, it's supposed to help small businesses, but it didn't. If you want to help small businesses, Durbin, tell Visa and MasterCard, like, they just did something where Business Visa knocked off like 10% if you do less than a certain amount, and MasterCard knocked off a little interchange for transactions under $30.

You found the savings in there anyway, right?

The savings is pennies, okay? Pennies to small businesses.

This guy, he did it. He, he was like, yeah. I was like, well, this is— we were looking at— I was like, oh, this is a good thing. He was like, we'll see about that. And like 3 minutes later, he came back with the mathematical equation. Yeah, I didn't carry the 3.

They're not saving anything. It's all— it's all— was just all placation, you know? It's all just plication. So, you know, prices going up is not caused by interchange fees. The small increase Visa and MasterCard put in that they held off on for over 2 years was also pennies, pennies of interchange. But, you know, you want to blame somebody, don't blame Visa and MasterCard. Talk to the banks. They're the ones who set the interchange fees, and MasterCard is the vehicle. They're just driving the car, right? They're just making the car go down the road, right, with their the Visa and MasterCard logo and making— I was explaining to Justin— 0.01% off a transaction. Meanwhile, the banks are the ones reaping in tons of profit. Now, of course, the banks are also taking the risk. If I don't pay my credit card bill and Samantha doesn't pay and Justin doesn't pay, the bank has to eat it, take a loss. We declare bankruptcy, la-di-da, they take a loss. So, you know, they should get the lion's share of the money. I'm not going to argue with that. Is interchange too high? Maybe, maybe not. But, you know, they built the vehicle where there's cash back, there's rewards, there's points, there's air miles, there's this, there's that. They made a— they made a system that people like. Consumers like credit cards, right? You even told me your dad told you, don't be paying— don't pay cash for gas, for your credit card, for everything, and then pay the credit card bill. Get the cash back.

Because the credit card bill reports to the credit bureau, just like, you know, like your utility bill. You pay your, your energy bill, they're not reporting that to the credit bureau. You pay your utility bill on time every month, right? You take your credit card, you pay your utility bill, you pay your credit card on time every month, that goes to the credit bureau. And then you boost— that's a little hack. I don't know, I don't know where— shout out to my wife, she's got all kinds of little tips and tricks for credibility.

But that's how it worked. Like, my son, he got his first credit card. He charges, he's very responsible with it. Every week, my daughter did the same thing, got a credit card, and every month paid it off. Put a couple hundred bucks, paid it up. Right now they both have like really good credit scores, you know.

So with the Dick Durbin thing, the way you're explaining to me with the, the way that the banks— how is that going to work?

Well, the, the basically the bank, the I don't know who's behind this bill, but the only people that could be behind this bill would be the banks because those banks will be issuing— no, no, the banks want to cut out Visa and MasterCard. Right.

That's what I'm saying.

They want to cut out—

they'll be the credit—

well, they're going to do it all. They're going to do it all themselves, issue the credit card, process the transaction.

No more Visa logo on your US Bank or Wells Fargo.

Yeah, well, that's what that lawsuit was about. They want to have this on-us transaction. So they could price it however they want. But I say that that's going to create an antitrust issue.

Sounds like chaos.

No, because they could go— Chase could go to Walmart and say, oh, yeah, we want you to sign up with us. All that. And these big businesses, they could probably set it up in their system. So one person comes in with a Chase card, it goes through Chase. A person comes in with Citibank, it goes to Citibank. A person comes in with Bank of America, goes to Bank of America. Right. A big company could do all that. What are you going to do in your sub shop? You're not going to be able to do all that. You're not going to save any money. So it's going to create an anti-competitive— it's going to create more profit for banks, more profit for the big guys.

It's got the small sub shop is going to have to charge more for his subs.

And so, well, he's not going to get any break in cost. He's going to be paying what he's paying now and he's going to get screwed this way.

While every other John's or whatever, right?

Jimmy John's could go put in a whole system because it's a big company, they could afford to go, oh, we're going to save thousands of dollars. Right, right. So, well, let's get our IT department on it and, you know, put all, you know, put this, you know, make all these, you know, they can analyze all their credit cards, find out which 5 banks they do the most with, and then route all the transactions, then negotiate special pricing with each bank. Some small business can't do that. So this bill, no, you need to write your congressperson and your Senate. Like, I'm calling it out right now. Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, DeSantis, you guys need to read this thing. If you don't understand it, call me on the phone. I got a thing. You can text book to 954-827-9818. I'll explain this to you.

Dick Durbin, I sent you an email. Requesting your presence on the show so that Allen would debate you.

I'll debate you.

I think he'll enlighten you. I think it'll be like a Buddhist monk meeting some savage person for the first time.

And then like, all of a sudden, you know, oh, Visa and MasterCard's not the evil empire.

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YouTube, please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel at B2B Vault. So if you know Dick Durbin, right, or, you know, there's these—

the other guy who's also sponsoring the bill with him, Marshall. I don't know where he's from. He's a Republican.

Marshall Mathers.

No, not Marshall. You know what's crazy when you think about that, Marshall? There was a story that Tony Dow, the guy who was on Leave It to Beaver, died. Touching.

Tony Danza.

No, but then he didn't die, but he died the next day.

That's sad.

Yeah, it is sad. So yeah, Dick Durbin, and then the other guys, Roger Marshall, senator from Kansas. I'll have either one of you guys on the show. Just Kansas. Yeah, he's from Kansas. I don't care. They're trying to make his Republican Yeah, but they're trying to make it look like, oh, it's bipartisan. You got a Democrat and a Republican. No, this bill is about the banks trying to screw small businesses to the wall. Okay, small business. I'm a small business owner. This is a small business that I run. Okay. And as a small business owner, I'm sick of the government that's going on right now. I am sick of what you are doing to small businesses. What it's done to my customers, what I see it doing to other small businesses around me, that there is way, way, way too much regulation and control coming from state governments. Not Florida. Thank you, Ron DeSantis. You know, but I'm telling you right now, Marco Rubio, come on the show. Rick Scott, come on the show. I'm very easy to find. You can just Google Allen Kopelman. You will find me. So if somebody's listening, I did my job. Yeah, we wrote Dick Durbin, we wrote Marco Rubio. I even wrote to Ted Deutch.

He's the guy. I sent Dick Durbin an email, right?

I wrote to these guys, come on the podcast, let's talk about this bill. This is, this is very upsetting. And if you're in the business with me and you want to talk about this, what's really written in this thing, I'll send you a copy of it. Okay, if you can't find it online. And you guys need to understand they're going to try to ruin the credit card processing industry. They're going to ruin small businesses. There's a lot of bad stuff about what they're talking about in this bill. And I want to tell you another thing from the consumer standpoint.

Another thing.

No, no. From a consumer standpoint, Rocky doesn't even like it. From a consumer standpoint, it is definitely not good. So let me talk about this for a minute. On the consumer side. So on the consumer side, when you get a credit card, you have a credit card agreement, right? And those credit card agreements, your rights are with Visa and MasterCard, has cardholder rights. American Express, Discover, there's cardholder rights. You're going to lose all those rights once the banks get control of this. They're going to decide what's going on, how much the interest rates are. Yeah, how much they're going to— Who knows? They could jack up the interest rates, get rid of the— get rid of the, uh, get rid of a cash back, get rid of rewards. Who the heck— who knows what they're gonna do, right? Because they could get a hold of it and then they go, oh well, you know, Dick Durbin said competitive network, so now we're going to be more competitive. But they're going to be more competitive in that they're going to go to big businesses and go, hey, we're going to give you this lower rate Sorry, you know, Justin's Sub Shop, Allen's Printing Company, Samantha Graphic Designer. No, no, no, no, no, you guys not getting any of that. Goodbye. And then what are you going to do if you're processing on PayPal, Stripe, Square, Shopify, all these other type of platforms which are good? You know, they're good for businesses, right? They give you a simplified method to process credit cards. You're not going to benefit from that either. So small business owner, the consumer is going to be screwed. What are they going to do about chargebacks? Who's going to monitor that? Right now it's monitored by Visa and MasterCard to monitor for security breaches. Right. You know, fraud controls, all these different things. What are they going to do? They don't have those. They don't even have a system built out yet. This guy wants to launch it in like a year.

You can't—

how is he going to do that?

You get a transaction bad transaction at your bank, it's going to take 3 months to even—

well, you know, they can make their own rules.

That's what I'm saying, right?

There's no Visa and Mastercard.

I don't like the way that sounds at all, right?

And so from a— so on all fronts, this is no good. This is no good for the public because we own stock in these companies. This is no good as a consumer because you're going to lose all your consumer protections, right? Because who knows, they're just going to be a loose cannon.

They can make whatever— they can make whatever rule they want, right?

You're not going to have Visa and MasterCard and American Express and Discover to help protect your rights as a cardholder. Okay, where's all the security features going to come from? The fraud features, the fraud monitoring, where is all that going to come from? You think they're not going to go to Visa and MasterCard?

These banks are terrible.

No, no, no, they're not going to come to them and go, oh, help us. Yeah, try to do like, let's say you process your check card, right, with a company And then you want to get your money back. You don't get— you're not going to get your money back. It takes weeks. Justin had one. What? It took a month?

No, a month.

Couple of months.

It took 5 months for me to get the money back.

To give me my money back because they have their own rules with all that stuff. So you think these banks are going to help you? Small— the person who's like the small consumer? No, we're going to be messed up. This is no good. All this stuff is for the elitists. In this country for the super rich. Super rich, they're the ones who are going to benefit. The banks are going to benefit. The big companies are going to benefit. And everybody else is going to get messed up with this thing. Small businesses, no good. Medium-sized business— people say to me, oh, what's a small business? Up to $5 million a month, you're considered a small business. $5 million, that's a lot of money. $5 million a month in revenue, but you're considered a small business up to $5 million. Okay. So these people don't know what they're talking about when they're talking about this is helping. This is not helping anybody. Dick Durbin, no. Uh, Roger Marshall, no. This is no good. I'm telling you, write to your congresspeople. Tell them you do not want this. This is nothing but that. And I'm gonna tell you something else that I link back to this, you know, and I know just You know, one of the stories that I read was from Seeking Alpha. I read a whole bunch of stories about this to see what everybody's take was. Wall Street Journal, there's going to be an article coming out. I'll post it in my social media. It's probably out now, but they interviewed me for this today. And there's probably a story that's hitting the newswire right now all about this. And there'll be another one for me. Okay, that, that's getting written right now. I got interviewed for that story. So that's going to be coming out in an industry publication. What was I just saying now?

I'm going a mile a minute. He's going hard, my friends.

No, but this is not good for anybody from any standpoint. You can look at this bill, write to your senator, write to your congresspeople, tell them stop this. This needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. This is a killer to business owners, a killer to the consumer, a killer to people, the small guy, anybody. If you're not mega rich, this is no good.

It's no good for fintech, that's for sure.

Yeah, it's no good for fintech. Going to mess up fintech companies. People are going to say, oh, I don't want to process with you. I'm just going to go process with the bank directly. Save all this money. It's been big companies, they're going to be able to crush everybody. Crush, crush, crush. This is no good, no good, no good. I'm gonna— don't worry, Ted Deutsch, I'm gonna— when we get the podcast, uh, thing, I'm gonna send you a link. Marco Rubio's getting a link. Dick Durbin's getting a link. Roger Marshall. We're gonna send links to everybody. Nancy Pelosi, you're on the list.

Yeah.

Come on the show, Nancy. We'll talk to you. We'll talk to AOC. She's the leader of all the cuckoo stuff going on in Congress. I'm surprised she's not on board with this. And what about— did you go talk? And what's messed up really is this guy, Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall. They're on the Judiciary Committee. They're not even on the Financial Committee.

Right.

So who— where's the people from the Financial Committee? Where's Maxine Waters? What do you have to say about this, Maxine? What do you think?

He doesn't know anything about it, right?

That's what I'm trying to say. They're trying to slide this thing through. Listen, they tried to slide in the Safe Banking Act, right? They tried to slide it into a bunch of bills recently, and it got ripped out, ripped out, ripped out, ripped out. Meanwhile, they got 50 other bills. This piece of legislation right here, this 4-page thing, no. This is— I was expecting like 50 pages of like, you know, my— like it was going to take me all weekend to read it, right? I've downloaded like 4 pages, not even 4 pages. Okay. No, no, no. You got to read into this thing. You have to read this thing, what it says. They're talking about what I said, competition, no exclusive network, some other network. Well, we already— I already explained to you what the other network is. So read this thing. Let's get out of here. Okay, so that's it. FinTech Friday. I went a little crazy. I actually had another story I was going to do today for FinTech Friday, but we'll do it next Friday. It's what not to do. That one's going to be about what not to do, what not to put on your website, because I had some crazy stuff going on this week with people trying to get accounts with crazy stuff on the website. But check out the podcast, write to your senators. Do not let your senators vote for this.

What is it called?

No, this thing is called— they want to amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, right? But there's other bills mentioned in here. Let me get— it's done.

There's too much in there.

Yeah, there's too much.

And that's not good. And we're going to do whatever we can to stop it, right? Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to FinTech Fridays. We are live. This is a test for coming up for next 2 weeks from now for the August 11th, August 11th giveaway. Thank you for tuning in, right?

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