Two U.S. senators have signed onto a bill that would force some of the biggest banks to stop funneling every card payment down the Visa-Mastercard duopoly’s favorite highway.
- New support: Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis joined the Credit Card Competition Act
- Target: concentrated control over card-network routing
- Mechanism: large banks would have to support an additional unaffiliated network
- Fight line: lower merchant fees versus possible cuts to card rewards
The move gives the Credit Card Competition Act a meaningful boost. The bill has been kicking around for a while as a way to make card payments less of a closed shop. The idea is pretty simple: if a bank issues a card, and that card can be routed across more than one network, merchants get more choice in how the payment is processed. More choice means more bargaining power. In payments, bargaining power is basically oxygen.
According to the Merchant Payments Coalition and Demand Progress, the bill would apply to banks with at least $100 billion in assets. Those groups say covered issuers would have to enable transactions over at least one additional network besides Visa or Mastercard, using an unaffiliated network such as Star, NYCE, or Shazam.
That routing rule matters because Visa and Mastercard are not the banks charging interchange directly, but they sit at the center of the system that decides which rails a payment can use. The network choice affects fees, bargaining leverage, and who gets to keep skimming a bit off the top of every purchase. The card industry likes to call that “frictionless commerce.” Merchants tend to call it “getting gouged in a suit.”
Supporters say more routing competition would force the biggest players to compete on price and service instead of leaning on market power. In practice, that could reduce swipe fees, also called interchange fees, which merchants pay when customers use credit cards. Those costs usually get passed along in prices, so they do not just hit stores. They hit everyone who buys anything.
The Merchant Payments Coalition says swipe fees reached $198.25 billion in 2025. That figure comes from a merchant advocacy group, so it should be treated as a supporter estimate, not neutral consensus. The same group says the average family pays more than $1, 200 a year because of those fees, and that the bill could save merchants and consumers $17 billion a year while creating 54, 000 retail jobs in the first year. Big claims. Also lobbying claims. That matters.
Demand Progress makes a similar case, saying swipe fees have risen 80% since the pandemic and that five card issuers pulled in $125 billion in profits in 2025. It also says Visa and Mastercard have profit margins of about 50%. Again, those numbers support the political case for the bill, but they are advocacy figures, not some neutral tablet handed down by the market gods.
There is still real substance behind the complaint. Card processing is one of those hidden toll systems most people only notice when a merchant adds a fee or grumbles about taking plastic. The networks, issuers, and processors each take a slice. Merchants say they are stuck with the bill because card acceptance is not optional in modern retail. Try telling a customer you only take cash and watch the line evaporate.
The main counterargument is familiar too. If credit card fees fall, banks may trim rewards, cut perks, or reprice cards to keep margins intact. That is not fantasy. Premium travel points, cash-back offers, and other rewards do not magically appear from the financial heavens. They are funded by the economics of the system, and if the economics change, somebody is going to feel it.
But that defense can also become a shield for a very comfortable status quo. The question is not whether rewards matter. They do. The question is whether consumers should keep subsidizing a highly concentrated payments structure just so a slice of cardholders can collect more points for their next airport lounge latte.
The political angle is worth watching too. According to the Merchant Payments Coalition, Moreno and Lummis are the first members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee to cosponsor the bill. The group also says the Senate measure now has support from three Republicans, two Democrats, and one independent. If accurate, that gives the bill more than a partisan anti-bank vibe. It gives it a populist, small-business-friendly frame that is harder to dismiss as niche merchant whining.
The crypto connection here is indirect, but obvious enough. This is not a Bitcoin bill and it is not a stablecoin bill. It does not replace Visa, Mastercard, or the banking system with decentralized rails. But it does raise the same underlying issue that keeps coming up across finance: who controls the pipes, who sets the tolls, and whether users have any meaningful choice at all.
That is why payment-rail fights matter to crypto people even when they are not “crypto” fights. Centralized systems become expensive because centralization tends to do that. Open networks, whether they are card rails, blockchains, or something else entirely, usually win on resilience and competition. The hard part is getting the old gatekeepers to loosen their grip without dragging out the gloves and hiring half of K Street.
For more context on the policy fight around fee caps and routing competition, see the arguments in Credit Card Competition Act: Reducing Swipe Fees and, along with the merchant side’s Credit Card Competition Act: Myths & Facts. For a deeper legal angle on the broader fight over payment networks, the long-running Payment card interchange fee and merchant discount dispute is the ugly backdrop here.
The policy implications also stretch beyond this Congress. Analysts are already looking at the Credit Card Competition Act of 2026: Implications for what could come next if the issue keeps building. And Lummis has been busy elsewhere too, including Lummis-Led Senators Pressure Treasury for Clear GENIUS Act, Lummis Ties Bitcoin to U.S. Debt as CLARITY Act Nears, and Lummis Warns Clarity Act Must Pass Now or U.S. Crypto Rules.
Key takeaways
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What did Moreno and Lummis support?
They joined as cosponsors of the Credit Card Competition Act, backing a push to increase competition in card-network routing. -
Who would the bill affect?
It would apply to banks with at least $100 billion in assets, requiring them to support an additional unaffiliated network for covered card transactions. -
Why do merchants want it?
They say more routing choice would increase competition and help reduce swipe fees, which are a major cost of accepting cards. -
What is the biggest criticism?
Opponents typically argue that lower fees could mean fewer rewards, less flexibility for card issuers, or more complexity in the payment system. -
Do the big savings numbers come from neutral sources?
No. The fee, savings, and job figures cited here come from advocacy groups, so they should be read as supporter estimates. -
Does this change Bitcoin or crypto payments directly?
No. It is traditional payments reform, not crypto policy, but it reflects the same anti-monopoly logic that drives interest in decentralized rails.
The bottom line is that the credit card system is still a heavily managed toll road, and the people collecting the toll are very attached to the arrangement. Moreno and Lummis backing the Credit Card Competition Act does not guarantee reform, but it does add more political pressure on Visa and Mastercard’s long-standing dominance.
Whether the bill actually survives the usual lobbying barrage is another question. The incumbent networks have deep pockets, huge reach, and plenty of experience protecting their moat. Still, every now and then, Congress remembers that “competition” is supposed to mean more than a slogan on a press release.
Further reading
For the policy and legal rabbit holes behind card-network competition, this resource is a useful next stop:
