I am writing to tell you, “Hands off my rewards!” and to ask that you oppose the Credit Card Competition Act. This bill would create harmful routing mandates on all credit card transactions that would allow big-box retailers, like Walmart and Target, to rake in billions in extra revenue at the expense of consumers, small businesses, and small banks.
The proposed routing mandates on credit cards would shift billions in consumer spending to less secure, less innovative, and higher-risk transactions that would weaken America’s payment system and put consumers like me in a vulnerable position. The proposed legislation will lead to even more private consumer information being made available to foreign networks in countries like China and Russia.
I am an avid supporter of credit card rewards programs that return billions of dollars to consumers every year. In 2020, U.S. card rewards programs returned roughly $60 billion to consumers of all income levels, helping working class families pay for groceries and back to school shopping. The Durbin-Marshall legislation would effectively eliminate credit card rewards as we know it.
Consumers like me exercise their choice to pick their credit card in a free market based, in large part, on the trust, security, benefits, and protections that the card offers. We expect that our choice will be honored. Having the government take the choice away from consumers, and give it to big-box retailers, is fundamentally wrong. This is the ultimate bait and switch, placing the risk of fraud and associated costs on consumers, our families, and our financial institutions.
