Banking Groups Urge Congress to Reject Credit Card Competition Act

Eleven banking and credit union groups sent a joint letter to members of Congress, urging the lawmakers to reject the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) and any expansion of the Durbin amendment.

“The payment card system is convenient, secure and essential to the American economy,” the groups said in a Thursday (Jan. 22) press release. “The Durbin-Marshall bill jeopardizes consumer protections, rewards programs and access to credit — all to benefit a handful of the largest merchants.”

The letter was signed by the American Bankers Association, America’s Credit Unions, the Association of Military Banks of America, the Bank Policy Institute, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Defense Credit Union Council, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the Electronic Payments Coalition, the Electronic Transactions Association, the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America and the National Bankers Association.

PYMNTS reported in January 2025 that among other things, the CCCA would enable card payments to be routed over at least one network that competes with Mastercard and Visa.

Proponents of the CCCA contend that expanding the routing will have the ripple effect of driving down so-called swipe fees. The bill has been endorsed by the Merchant Payment Coalition, the National Association of Convenience Stores and other retail groups.

President Donald Trump endorsed the bill on Jan. 13 when Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois reintroduced it. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California and Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas.

Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that the bill would “stop the out-of-control swipe fee rip-off.”

In their Thursday letter, the banking and credit union groups argue that nearly all the savings delivered by the bill would accrue to large corporate retailers, while small businesses would lose as much as $1 billion in rewards and see reduced access to credit.

Small community banks and credit unions would struggle to continue to offer affordable financing to families and small businesses due to the bill’s “backdoor price controls on credit routing,” the groups said.

In addition, they said, low-income consumers and those with damaged credit would have less access to credit cards.

The groups also said in the letter that the payments ecosystem is “rife with competition,” as businesses and individuals have many payment options from which to choose.

“There is also no evidence of significant concentration in the credit card market,” they said in the letter. “In fact, there are more than 4,000 issuers, and even among the biggest players, the market for consumer cards concentration is far below the DOJ [Department of Justice] threshold — far less concentrated than other industries.”