Capping the Credit and Debit Card Swipe Fees Introduction Elaine Thompson/Associated Press A United States district court last week overturned a Federal Reserve rule capping the debit card fees that banks collect from merchants. The judge said the caps, which were 21 cents a transaction (down from an average of about 44 cents), were too high. The European Commission has proposed to cap interchange, or swipe, fees at 0,2 percent for debit cards and 0.3 percent for credit cards (in the U.S., they are on average 2.5 percent of every transaction and can be as high as 4 percent). Should the U.S. do the same?