CUNA and organizations representing the entire financial services industry wrote House leaders in strong opposition of the interchange bill (H.R. 3881) introduced last week by Reps. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and Zoe Lofgren, C-Calif. The letter follows a similar one sent by the organizations to Senate leaders last week.
CUNA and Leagues issued an action alert in opposition to the bill, which has generated more than 9,000 messages of opposition.
“Far from increasing competition in the credit card marketplace, this legislation will hurt consumers and benefit big box retailers by reducing the number of credit card issuers competing for consumers’ business, removing a consumer’s choice of preferred card network, wringing out the competitive differences among card products, limiting popular credit card rewards programs, and putting the nation’s private-sector payments system under the micromanagement of the Federal Reserve Board,” the letter reads.
“The Gooden-Lofgren bill accomplishes this by using legislation to circumvent the free market to award private-sector contracts to a small handful of the sponsors’ favored payment networks to pad the profits of the largest e-commerce and multi-national retailers who are raising prices on American families far more than the real rate of inflation,” it adds.
The letter also notes:
CUNA, along with the American Bankers Association, Association of Military Banks of America, Bank Policy Institute, Consumer Bankers Association, Defense Credit Union Council, Electronic Payments Coalition, Independent Community Bankers of America, Mid-Sized Bank Coalition of America, National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, and National Bankers Association signed the letter.