BALTIMORE -- Every time someone swipes a debit card to make a purchase, the bank takes a cut. There's now a push to give retailers a break.

A financial regulatory reform bill before Congress would lower the fee that banks can charge merchants.

The biggest supporters of the measure are retailers, grocers, gas stations and any other place that accepts debit cards, according to 11 News reporter Kerry Cavanaugh.

They said that shaving even pennies off that debit card service fee will help them weather these lean economic times and keep prices lower for consumers.

At the Bel-Garden Bi-Rite supermarket, owner Sandy Vary said she pays the bank a fee of about 25 cents for every debit card transaction. That adds up to about $20,000 a year at her high volume store, Cavanaugh reported.

"Our business is a business of pennies," she said. "So every single penny and every single fee that we're assessed means a lot to us."

That's why she's hoping Congress passes a bill aimed at lowering the merchant fees on debit card transactions.

"We can use it to improve our business for new equipment, to upgrade existing equipment," she said.

But while business owners like Vary support the measure, economist Morris Segall said that community banks are balking at the idea.

"Their position is, 'We need this to be competitive," he said. He added that big banks would likely pass on new fees to consumers if they're forced to lower service charges on merchants.

"Costs are going to go up somewhere along the line," Segall said. "And they'll find a place to do it. They'll either raise fees on services they're already providing or they'll start to put fees in where they're not already charging."

Vary said she's just concerned about keeping up the business her parents founded in 1951.

It is a high stakes battle on Capitol Hill as merchants battle it out with the big banks. The feeds in question could add up to about $20 billion a year, Cavanaugh reported.

The article can be viewed at wbaltv.com