Two senators have submitted an amendment to a bill that could move forward the Credit Card Competition Act, which aims to help combat swipe fees for retailers like convenience stores.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) on behalf of himself and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) on Tuesday filed the amendment to add the Credit Card Competition Act to the Genius Act, an unrelated bill that establishes a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency.
The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) said the senators are seeking a vote on their legislation, and if their amendment is allowed, a vote could happen as early as this week.
“This amendment (i.e. the Credit Card Competition Act), 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,” NACS said in a Wednesday news alert.
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.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.