Voting is delayed on the Genius Act, a bill that could move forward the Credit Card Competition Act, which aims to help combat swipe fees for retailers like convenience stores.
It was possible that a Senate vote to add the amendment could have come as early as May 22, NACS said. However, Congress is now on a brief recess and the overall bill will not be considered until next week, according to the U.S. Senate Legislative Schedule. The Senate is in a State Work Period from May 26-30.
On May 20, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) on behalf of himself and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) filed the amendment to add the Credit Card Competition Act to the Genius Act. This would create choice for the processing of credit card transactions by requiring the largest U.S. banks that issue Visa or Mastercard credit cards to allow transactions to be processed over at least two unaffiliated card payment networks—the same process that has been used for debit card transactions for more than a decade.
“Our industry—and the retail community overall—has done a fantastic job in contacting their Senators to support the Marshall-Durbin Amendment, and we need to keep the pressure on during this brief recess,” said NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor. “We need Senators to hear from their constituents on this issue. Let’s continue to push the Senate for a vote to support this amendment.”
The Alexandria, Virginia-based organization urged convenience-store industry advocates to help support the act by contacting their senators. It provides some talking points here.
At more than $187 billion, credit and debit card interchange fees reached another new record last year, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition.
The bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act was introduced in 2022 and reintroduced in June 2023 as a way to provide merchants relief from swipe fees.
Some retailers, like Weigel’s and St. Romain Oil Co., have partnered with NACS and Rovertown to integrate swipe fee reform messaging into their mobile apps.
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