December 19, 2014 - US community banks are calling for a crackdown on merchant security protocols after reissuing nearly 7.5 million credit and debit cards at a total cost of more than $90 million as a result of the Home Depot data breach.

ICBA is one of seven banking trade bodies that have been actively lobbying Congressional leaders to pass legislation that will force retailers to tighten up security following a spate of cyber-attacks that has seen hundreds of millions of consumer account compromised over the past year.

The latest figures come from a sample survey of members instigated by the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), which additionally found that four per cent of polled banks reported fraud on accounts that were compromised by the April-September breach.

"Community banks continue to absorb exorbitant costs due to data breaches. This is money — more than $90 million — that could be used for lending in local communities to homeowners, small business owners and budding entrepreneurs to spur local economic growth and stability," says John Buhrmaster, ICBA chairman and president and CEO of 1st National Bank of Scotia, N.Y. "For this reason, we continue to advocate that the costs associated with data breaches be borne by the party that experiences the breach. Communities and customers should not suffer for the faults of retailers."