was free checking. Then it was spending rewards. Are decoupled-debit cards the next casualty of the Durbin amendment?" In time, though, opinion has shifted. I suspect that this is because the value of the data was underestimated in the original modelling. You can continue the thought experiment a little further along these lines. If the data really is valuable then the retailers will then do a deal with Google to get access to this data as part of the bundle of services that Google delivers to them. Merchants may soon begin to impose a surcharge each time a customer pays with credit card, a practice Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. currently prohibit.... [But provision will likely go away as part of impending settlement]. Debit is already the dominant non-cash tender at retail POS and with retailers incentivising the use of products such as Google's (because they want access to the data) there will be real pressure on legacy schemes. And note that retailers aren't the only people going down this route. Look at the "mpass" payment scheme that O2 has launched in Germany to see how mobile operators can deliver the SP transaction. Customers have two options as to how to settle the amount later. Users can either have the amounts debited conveniently from their current account by direct debit, or they can top up credit via bank transfer to the mpass account which is opened on registering. When I read about this I thought it was quite interesting, because