League Engaged with Sens. Warner, Kaine Ahead of April 9 Hearing on Credit Card Competition Act

Ahead of a planned April 9 hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) have added two new cosponsors to their bill that would overhaul the rules governing credit card interchange.

Your League and system partners have fiercely opposed the Credit Card Competition Act (S.1838), which would require cards from financial institutions with $100 billion or more of assets to offer merchants the choice of two unaffiliated card networks that aren't both Visa and Mastercard. We maintain that passage of the measure will negatively impact consumers and the whole of the financial services industry.

“Legislative and regulatory measures, like the Credit Card Competition Act, represent a significant threat to the credit union business model by stripping us of needed resources to address the ever-rising costs of fraud and provide members with the consumer-friendly products and services they expect from their credit union,” said League Chief Advocacy Officer JT Blau. “Any change to the current credit card interchange system will only benefit the nation’s big-box retailers at the expense of consumers.”

“What’s more, any regulation that targets the industry’s major players will, in time, impact every financial institution. We need only look to the decade-old regulation governing debit card interchange for proof of that fact.”

Blau noted that the League remains actively engaged with Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine on the issue. The measure remains our top legislative priority as we ready for the Governmental Affairs Conference and our “Hike the Hill” efforts next month in Washington.

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) signed on to the legislation on Wednesday, joining Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).