Credit Card Competition Act Gets Renewed Attention

The Credit Card Competition Act is attracting renewed attention from the White House and Congress. President Donald Trump reiterated his support for the legislation in a recent social media post, after first publicly backing the bill in January.

Momentum is also building in the Senate, where Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Angus King (I-Maine) have joined as cosponsors. Lummis and Moreno both serve on the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation.

The Credit Card Competition Act, S. 3623, would require credit card issuers with more than $100 billion in assets to enable transactions to be routed over at least two unaffiliated payment networks, including at least one network other than Visa or Mastercard.

The credit union system strongly opposes the legislation, citing concerns that mandated routing requirements and changes to interchange revenue could reduce resources that support fraud prevention, cybersecurity, card operations and other services that benefit members.

Similar debates over interchange fees are also playing out at the state level, with proposals surfacing in legislatures across the country and in the District of Columbia.

The Association has been actively engaged on the issue, including in Delaware, where lawmakers did not advance legislation that would have prohibited interchange fees on the gratuity portion of transactions. Working alongside credit unions and other stakeholders, the Association raised concerns about the potential operational, financial and consumer impacts of imposing new restrictions on interchange.

With interchange policy drawing renewed attention at both the federal and state levels, the Association will continue to closely monitor legislative developments and advocate on behalf of credit unions and their members.