Richard Hunt, the executive chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), said at a Breitbart News policy event last week that Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KY) are trying to take away your credit card rewards with their credit card legislation.
Hunt explained that the EPC represents a diverse group of organizations, including credit unions, community banks, large banks, and unions. He warned that two senators, Durbin and Marshall, are moving to take away credit card rewards, which many Americans use for cashback or even to pay for travel for vacation.
Marshall and Durbin have been pushing the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) for years. Hunt dubbed it the “Credit Card Cancellation Act,” noting that large retailers such as Walmart, Target, and Home Depot have backed the bill.
Advocates for the bill believe that they can inject more competition into payment processing by requiring banks to work with at least one alternative payment network besides Visa and Mastercard, the dominant players in the industry.
Under the current system, if a merchant accepts credit cards, it is “locked in” to whatever payment network that credit card runs, usually Visa or Mastercard, and thus must pay whatever the fee that payment network charges for transactions.
Durbin and Marshall believe that by passing the bill, more competition among payment networks would drive down merchants’ credit card costs, and the retailers would pass on that savings to consumers. Critics of the bill contend that it would, in addition to compromising the security of payment processing, likely kill credit card reward programs, just as previous Dodd-Frank legislation eliminated debit card rewards.
Hunt told Breitbart New Economics Editor John Carney that Americans used to receive rewards on debit cards and used to get free checking accounts. However, this ended when Durbin managed to get the Durbin Amendment included in the post-2008 financial crisis financial bill known as Dodd-Frank.
Durbin and other advocates for the Credit Card Competition Act have touted that the bill would allegedly pass on savings to consumers; however, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that retailers have not passed on savings after the enactment of the Durbin Amendment.
Hunt concluded, “Watch your wallet, hands off my rewards, don’t let Congress and politicians take away your access to credit, your access to reward points, your safety and security of the payment system is at risk and they’re going all out, I assure you, to take your credit card away from you as it operates today.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3
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