WASHINGTON–The Defense Credit Union Council (DCUC) and America’s Credit Unions are calling on Senate Agriculture Committee to reject any effort to include the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) in the Committee’s upcoming digital assets market structure markup, which is currently scheduled for Jan. 27.
As the CU Daily reported here, the credit union-opposed Credit Card Competition Act was added as an amendment to the Senate Agriculture Committee’s cryptocurrency bill on Friday.
“This amendment, as currently proposed, is not germane. Attempting to force it into the Agriculture Committee’s markup is more than a procedural misstep, but a clear signal of disrespect for the committee, its members, and the legislative process itself,” wrote America’s Credit Unions President and CEO Scott Simpson. “While Sen. Marshall’s proposal is being pitched as a significant rewrite of his original Credit Card Competition Act, which was endorsed by the President earlier this month, the newly proposed amendment is little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing… a government price control by another name.”
The trade group said the offered amendment would also expand the role of state attorneys general, which Simpson argued would “fragment enforcement, undermine national standards, and destabilize a system consumers and small businesses rely on.
‘Broader Harm’
“The broader harm caused by interchange mandates is undeniable and well documented. The Congressional Research Service, independent academics, and respected economists have all reached the same conclusion: price controls on interchange fees fail consumers and fail local financial institutions,” Simpson continued.
He urged Congress to “reject this legislation altogether and instead work with credit unions to address affordability challenges in a way that actually helps consumers.”
Defense Council: ‘No Place in a Digital Asset Bill’
In its letter to the committee, DCUC said it strongly opposes the attempts by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Peter Welch (D-VT) to attach the proposal.
“This controversial interchange amendment has no place in a digital asset policy bill,” DCUC said in its letter. “The CCCA is fundamentally about credit card routing and interchange fees – topics squarely under the jurisdiction of the Senate Banking Committee, not the Agriculture Committee. It has never been considered through regular order by the Banking Committee, where issues of payments, interchange, and consumer credit rightly belong.”
‘Backdoor Maneuver’
DCUC further warned that attaching the Durbin–Marshall proposal to a bipartisan digital assets framework is a “backdoor maneuver that undermines the integrity of the legislative process and bypasses appropriate scrutiny for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. payments system.”
Beyond process concerns, DCUC said it also sought to stress stressed the Credit Card Competition Act would harm consumers and the military community, while delivering no meaningful benefits to cardholders.
“Government-mandated interchange routing changes do not benefit consumers,” DCUC Chief Advocacy Officer Jason Stverak said in a statement. “We’ve seen this before with the Durbin debit interchange cap, where promised savings never reached consumers and instead flowed to large retailers.”
Research Cited
DCUC cited research from the Congressional Research Service showing that 98% of merchants raised prices or kept them the same following the Durbin debit caps, as well as findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond indicating retailers imposed new restrictions rather than passing savings along at the checkout.
At the same time, DCUC further cautioned that reduced interchange revenue would directly weaken credit unions’ ability to invest in fraud prevention, cybersecurity, rewards programs, and member services. For defense credit unions, those funds also support military-specific benefits such as low-interest, no-fee credit cards, deployment relief loans, free financial counseling, and emergency assistance programs.
‘Reduce Access’
“If adopted, this amendment would reduce access to safe, affordable credit and weaken fraud protections for military members, young servicemembers, and veterans,” DCUC President/CEO Anthony Hernandez warned in a statement. “It would shift costs onto consumers and community financial institutions while delivering a windfall to large retail chains.”
Increased Fraud
DCUC also raised serious concerns about increased fraud risk.
“By forcing transactions onto the cheapest available networks, the proposal would prioritize cost over security, potentially routing sensitive payment data through networks with weaker fraud protections,” the organization said.
It cited separate findings by researchers at Texas A&M estimate the proposal’s routing mandates could double annual card fraud losses to $20 billion over the next decade, an especially troubling risk for military cardholders, including those deployed overseas in high-risk environments.
‘Stay Focused’
DCUC urged Senate leaders to keep the Jan. 27 markup narrowly focused on digital asset regulation and to reject any unrelated interchange mandates.
