ICBA, groups oppose effort to tie credit card bill to defense legislation

ICBA and other financial services groups expressed strong opposition to an attempt to advance credit card routing restrictions via this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, while ICBA continues its grassroots campaign against the measure.

NDAA Effort: Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) are offering amendments to the NDAA that would authorize a study of interchange fees at military commissaries and attach to the defense bill their Credit Card Competition Act (S. 1838/H.R. 3881), which would impose routing restrictions on credit card transactions.

Legislative Details: The ICBA-opposed credit card legislation—introduced in the House by Reps. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)—would require banks with more than $100 billion in assets to offer merchants at least two networks to process credit cards, at least one of which cannot be owned by Visa or Mastercard.

Joint Industry Letter: In a joint letter, ICBA and other groups said the amendments are nongermane and would rob military families of their credit card rewards, reduce the availability of safe credit, and undermine the nation’s data security, solely to benefit big-box merchants such as Amazon and Walmart.

State Association Letter: ICBA and 44 state community banking associations last week called on members of Congress to oppose the credit card routing bill. In a joint letter to lawmakers, the groups said the bill would force an overhaul of the payments landscape at a significant cost to consumers and the community banks that serve them.

Grassroots Alert: ICBA is calling on community bankers to use its Be Heard grassroots action center to urge their members of Congress to oppose the bill.

Additional Grassroots: Meanwhile, ICBA continues calling on community bankers to urge their members of Congress to:

Support a resolution to nullify the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Section 1071 data collection and reporting rule.
Co-sponsor legislation to exempt from taxation the interest income on farm real estate and rural mortgage loans.