President Trump Endorses Credit Card Competition Act

President Donald Trump endorsed a bill that aims to lower credit card swipe fees.

“Everyone should support great Republican Sen. Roger Marshall’s Credit Card Competition Act in order to stop the out-of-control swipe fee rip-off,” Trump wrote in a Tuesday (Jan. 13) post on Truth Social.

Sen. Marshall of Kansas and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois reintroduced the Credit Card Competition Act Tuesday, saying in a press release that the bill would require large banks with more than $100 billion in assets to enable at least two unaffiliated card networks, including one that is neither Visa nor Mastercard.

This would increase competition in the credit card processing market and help lower swipe fees, the senators said in the release.

Neither Visa nor Mastercard immediately replied to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Marshall and Durbin originally introduced the bill in the previous Congress, according to the senators’ press release.

Marshall said in the release: “It’s time to bring real competition to a credit card network market dominated by Visa and Mastercard—and drive down the cost of everyday goods.”

Durbin said: “By bringing real competition to credit card networks, which is currently dominated by the Visa-Mastercard duopoly, we can reduce swipe fees and hold down costs for Main Street merchants and their customers.”

A companion bill was introduced Tuesday in the House by Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California and Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas, according to a press release.

Trump’s endorsement of the swipe fees bill follows his demand that credit card interest rates be capped at 10%.

Meanwhile, Klarna Group CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said credit card interest rates should be set at 0% and that credit card rewards redistribute money from the poor to the wealthy, according to a Tuesday Bloomberg report.

“We’ve seen in Europe that putting in interchange regulation and interest rate caps in place work really well,” Siemiatkowski said, per the report.

It was reported Tuesday that JPMorgan Chase Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said the banking industry could fight proposed credit card price caps.

“If you wind up with weakly supported directives to radically change our business that aren’t justified, you have to assume that everything’s on the table,” Barnum said. “We owe that to shareholders.”