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With expectations growing that the Credit Card Competition Act will soon be reintroduced in Congress, proponents of the bill feel its prospects for passage are better than ever. Helping fuel this optimism is growing bipartisan support for the bill, proponents say.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee [hearing in November] showed there was a lot of support across the aisle, and even skeptics indicated it would pass. It is just a question of when,” says Doug Kantor, an executive committee member for the Merchants Payments Coalition and general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores. “From our perspective, there is a lot of support across the aisle.”
Kantor was referring to a November Senate Judiciary hearing on credit card swipe fees during which the CCCA was discussed.
Another factor likely to favor the bill is that it provides politicians talking points that will resonate with voters. One such point is the argument that it benefits merchants, particularly small merchants, which can then potentially pass the cost savings on to consumers.
Originally proposed in 2022 by Senators Richard Durbin, a Democrat, and Roger Marshall, a Republican the CCCA would require that credit card transactions offer merchants a choice of networks that would include systems beyond Visa and Mastercard.
“I give the bill a better than 50-50 chance to make it out of committee [if reintroduced] because the current political environment is fertile for a bill like this, given all the talk around protecting consumers and small business and some of the actions of the current administration, such as shutting down the CFPB,” says Patricia Hewitt, principal at PG Research and Advisory Services LLC and a former candidate for Congress.
Hewitt is quick to add she thinks the bill is flawed. “But that doesn’t matter,” she argues. “What matters is perception, and the CCCA gives politicians talking points” to sell that perception, she says.
Just when the CCCA might be reintroduced is unknown, but opponents have already begun gearing up to keep the legislation from passing. In January, the Electronic Payments Coalition released a study from Oxford Economics Research claiming the bill’s impact on the U.S. economy after four years would be a drop of $227 billion in discretionary consumer spending and the loss of 156,000 jobs.
The EPC says it fully expects the CCCA to be reintroduced. “You didn’t need a crystal ball to guess the nation’s largest corporate mega-stores and the biggest recipients of their campaign contributions would try again to impose untested, flawed government mandates on Americans’ credit cards,” an EPC spokesperson says by email.
As part of its current campaign against the proposal, the EPC has been highlighting articles and letters to the editor in newspapers and magazines around the country, as well as blog posts, opposing the CCCA.
The content cited includes a blog post in January from The American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research saying it issued a joint letter urging Congress to oppose the reintroduction of the CCCA and other efforts to impose price controls on credit cards.
The institute argues such measures for credit cards would “distort the financial market, restrict consumer access to credit, and ultimately fail to deliver promised cost savings to the public.”
Should the CCCA be reintroduced, it will be the third time the bill has been brought before Congress. It has been introduced in the previous two sessions of Congress, and in both instances the bill never came to a vote. Many pieces of legislation end up being introduced in Congress multiple times before gaining enough support for passage, supporters argue. “It’s not unusual for that to happen,” says Kantor.
Opponents argue that nothing has changed in the political landscape that will give the bill traction this time around. “Despite the best talking points [of CCCA supporters], the facts have not changed,” the EPC spokesperson says. “These mandates will not save consumers or small businesses money; corporate mega-stores will not lower prices; consumers and small businesses will lose valuable rewards programs, and your data security will be put into jeopardy – just like we saw after the original Durbin Amendment placed similar mandates and price controls on Americans’ debit cards.”
Durbin likely wants to make one more push to pass the bill before deciding whether to run for another term in 2026, payment experts say. Durbin, who is 80, has yet to declare his intentions about re-election. “Durbin is not going to be in the arena forever. Passing the CCCA would be the capstone of his long crusade against Mastercard, Visa, and payment card issuers,” Eric Grover, principal at the consultancy Intrepid Ventures, says by email. “He wants another win after his eponymous Durbin Amendment.”
Merchant organizations in favor of the bill counter that despite the card industry’s ongoing fight against the bill, it is a battle that cannot be waged indefinitely. “The card industry can’t hold off a vote on the CCCA forever,” Kantor says. “Congress will eventually vote on it.”
Given the persistence of the bill’s sponsors, and the growing belief the legislation will be reintroduced, opponents contend the card industry can’t afford to back off on its campaign to defeat the bill.
“Durbin, his fellow CCCA sponsors, including Vice President JD Vance, and the merchant lobby have had some success framing the terms of the debate, vilifying Mastercard, Visa, and large issuers, and painting small merchants as victims,” Grover says. “I would suggest that banks and the payments industry cannot be too aggressive in making an affirmative case in the public arena and to consumers (voters) for the value the existing system delivers.”
