What’s in a name? In the case of the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), quite a lot ... and not in a good way. Despite its friendly-sounding label, this bill, recently revived in Congress, has little to do with real competition or lowering costs for everyday Americans.
We've done a lot of analysis on the legislation’s details. The data shows that the CCCA would overwhelmingly benefit one group: the country’s largest retailers. A University of Miami study estimates that nearly all projected savings would flow directly to merchants with more than $500 million in annual sales.
Still, supporters keep searching for any legislative vehicle to hitch this idea to, even trying to slip reworked language into an unrelated crypto bill in the Senate Agriculture Committee. If this all sounds familiar, that’s because it is. In 2010, the Durbin Amendment was added to the Dodd‑Frank Act during late‑night negotiations, imposing similar routing mandates on debit cards. Consumers have been feeling the ripple effects ever since.
Today’s credit card system, while not perfect, is safe, secure, and works well for consumers and businesses alike. Issuers invest heavily in fraud protection, provide rewards programs that many families depend on, and extend credit to borrowers across income and credit-score ranges. Merchants, for their part, continue to benefit from (and encourage) credit card use. And credit unions offer affordable, dependable products that help households keep moving forward.
But if these new mandates go into effect, several things would change for the worse:
Data privacy and security would suffer
Fraud losses in the payments system are already climbing. Yet under the CCCA, retailers—not card issuers—would get to choose which networks process transactions, including cheaper but less secure options. We’ve seen this before: after the Durbin Amendment reshaped debit card routing, debit fraud doubled. There’s no reason to assume credit card fraud wouldn’t follow the same path.
Access to credit would shrink
Interchange fees aren’t just about fraud protection. They help cover the substantial cost of offering unsecured credit to millions of Americans. If those funds are squeezed, lenders will tighten standards, making it harder for people with lower credit scores or thinner credit histories to get the credit they need.
This isn’t speculation. After the Durbin Amendment, the Government Accountability Office found that free checking accounts declined sharply. And while retailers promised that their savings would translate into lower consumer prices, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found no evidence of broad price cuts. In fact, many retailers raised prices and kept the difference for themselves.
The CCCA would set the stage for the same outcome: retailers cutting their own costs without taking responsibility for fraud risk, and with no requirement that they pass along savings to consumers.
Consumers ultimately pay the price
Less access to credit. Higher annual fees. Reduced fraud protection. Consumers would face these consequences without any guarantee of the benefits.
The government’s harmful intervention in the debit card market provides a clear cautionary tale for policymakers now eyeing the credit card system. Everyday consumers simply cannot afford a repeat of the Durbin experiment.
No matter what you call it, the Credit Card Competition Act won't deliver competition or savings. It would increase costs, and they land squarely on the shoulders of the people who can least afford them.
