FMI Celebrates Congressional Sponsors for Reintroducing Credit Card Competition Act

Arlington, VA - Today, FMI – The Food Industry Association offered its endorsement of the reintroduced bipartisan, bicameral Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) and expressed gratitude for the leadership of bill sponsors Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Peter Welch (D-VT) and Representatives Lance Gooden (R-TX) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). The legislation requires the nation’s largest banks to enable a second network on a credit card on which to route transactions, similar to the existing federal law for two debit networks to be enabled on a debit card. 

“FMI enthusiastically endorses the reintroduction of the Credit Card Competition Act and praises Senators Marshall, Durbin and Welch and Representatives Gooden and Lofgren for their steadfast leadership in bringing credit card swipe fee reform to the broken market that has long disadvantaged U.S. grocery customers and grocers nationwide,” stated FMI’s Chief Public Policy Officer Jennifer Hatcher. 

“FMI is very appreciative of Senators Marshall, Durbin and Welch and Representatives Gooden and Lofgren for their commitment to commonsense credit card reform that provides competition, alternative routing in the event a system is down, and relief to main street businesses and our customers,” continued Hatcher. 

The Credit Card Competition Act brings market-based competition to the credit card system by requiring the nation’s large banks and one very large credit union that issue Visa and Mastercard-branded credit cards to enable an additional network on the card to route a transaction. These routing networks would have to compete for the issuing bank’s business to be designated as the second network enabled. Simultaneously, these routing networks would compete to be a merchant’s preferred provider. Credit cards would not have to be reissued to implement this change. 

“For far too long, Visa and Mastercard have arbitrarily increased credit card swipe fees on merchants and consumers and used the anticompetitive practice of setting these fees for the benefit the issuing banks and credit unions in addition to themselves at a rate that often exceeds 3% while grocery profit margins sit at 1.7%. The bipartisan, bicameral Marshall-Durbin-Welch-Gooden-Lofgren legislation fosters competition, security and transparency to bring down the cost of swipe fees,” further noted Hatcher. 

Credit and debit card swipe fees in 2024 totaled $187.2 billion, according to the Nilson Report. This was an increase of 8.1% from the previous year and 70% since the beginning of the pandemic. Visa and Mastercard-branded credit card swipe fees in 2024 totaled $111.2 billion, which amounted to an increase of more than 10% in just one year and nearly triple what the fees were in 2014 ($39.1 billion). Swipe fees amount to an average of nearly $1,200 per American household according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.