Interchange
The current interchange payment system works to benefit consumers, credit unions, and merchants. America’s Credit Unions is working to stop legislation aimed at changing credit interchange and fighting back against the Federal Reserve’s proposal to lower the debit interchange cap.
The Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) represents an unwarranted and heavy-handed government intrusion into the credit card payment market that would hurt credit unions and consumers alike, while allowing the largest retailers to pocket significant cost savings. It is nothing more than a “big box bailout” for the nation’s largest retailers under the guise of a competition bill. The CCCA’s asset threshold exemption would not protect smaller institutions such as credit unions. History has already taught us that the market pressures of the new credit card routing requirements would affect smaller institutions in the same way that the Durbin Amendment led to a loss of interchange revenue even for the below-threshold financial institutions it claimed to exempt. Consumers would see higher account fees and a continued decline in the availability of free checking accounts. Many would lose access to credit card rewards. Furthermore, there is nothing in this legislation guaranteeing that retailers would actually lower consumer prices in line with their own lower payment costs.
America’s Credit Unions urges lawmakers to reject and oppose this misguided legislation.