Coalition work continues to halt Big Box Bailout Bill movement

The “Credit Card Competition Act” should be called the “Credit Card Cancellation Act,” Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC) Director Richard Hunt told a financial services event in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. America’s Credit Unions is an EPC member, and Chief Advocacy Officer and EPC Board Member Carrie Hunt attended the event.

Otherwise known as the Big Box Bailout bill—and introduced in the last Congress by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan.—it would create new credit card interchange mandates.

Richard Hunt said the EPC’s “number one core mission is to make sure [Senators] Durbin and Marshall don’t tell American companies how to process credit cards and take away your credit cards. Our coalition is credit unions, community banks, large banks, airlines, airports. Even unions have joined us in this battle to defeat Durbin-Marshall.

“They’ve not done any research. They’ve not had any legitimate hearings whatsoever. Walmart and Target are funding this operation for the mega corporate stores to do this. So we’re fighting back each and every day,” he added. “This bill has not been reintroduced this Congress. They’re having a hard time finding co-sponsors to do it. It’s because of our coalition going to members of Congress saying how this would hurt states that rely on tourism because people would stop flying, credit cards would be reduced.”

America’s Credit Unions has been successful this Congress keeping it out of Senate-passed stablecoin legislation last month, and is working to ensure it stays out of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also spoke at the event and outlined the steps the administration is taking to combat online fraud and scams, especially those done by international criminal syndicates. He noted both the Treasury and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had been hacked before his tenure and that Treasury is working with the private sector to combat these scams.

“We were holding a tabletop exercise with regulators two weeks ago, in case of large-scale cyberattack and we’re pushing as hard as we can on this, because with generative AI, they can just grab your voice,” he said. “For financial firms, it’s the real challenge of the day, and obviously older people are more vulnerable, but everybody is vulnerable.”

America’s Credit Unions continues to fight fraud on all fronts, including supporting legislation to address it, engaging with Congress and the administration on solutions, and offering resources for credit unions to assess fraud risk.