What Is the Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Bill?

The Durbin-Marshall credit card bill, formally the Credit Card Competition Act, would require the largest U.S. banks to enable at least two unaffiliated payment networks on every credit card they issue, with at least one option other than Visa or Mastercard. Merchants, not banks, would choose which network processes each transaction. Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall first introduced the bill in 2022 and reintroduced it in the 119th Congress as S.3623, the Credit Card Competition Act of 2026.¹

What the Bill Would Actually Do

Today, when you use a credit card issued by a large bank, the transaction almost always runs over Visa or Mastercard. The merchant has no choice in the matter. The bill would amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to require covered cards to carry a second, unaffiliated network, and it would let the merchant pick which of the two handles a given swipe, tap, or online charge.²

The mandate applies only to “covered card issuers,” meaning banks and financial institutions with more than $100 billion in assets. Community banks and credit unions are not directly covered.³ Whether they escape the effects is a different question, discussed below.

A few other pieces matter. The Federal Reserve Board would write the implementing rules within a year of enactment, and those rules would take effect 180 days after being finalized.¹ The bill also bars networks from using proprietary security tools to lock competitors out, so Visa or Mastercard could not claim their fraud technology is exclusive to their own rails. And any network “owned, operated, or sponsored by a foreign state entity” is disqualified from serving as the alternative option, which effectively rules out China UnionPay.⁴

Why Sponsors Say It Is Needed

Visa and Mastercard together account for roughly 83% of general-purpose credit cards in the United States, according to Federal Reserve data cited by the bill’s sponsors.⁵ Durbin and Marshall argue that duopoly lets both networks charge merchants high interchange fees without pressure to lower them.

Those fees are large. Credit card swipe fees totaled $148.5 billion in 2024, up from $136 billion the year before.⁶ The average U.S. credit card interchange fee runs about 2% per transaction, compared to 0.3% in the European Union, where interchange is capped by regulation.

The theory behind the bill is straightforward. If a merchant can choose between two networks on the same card, those networks have to compete on price and service. Sponsors say that competition should push fees down without Congress having to set a cap directly, and that some of the savings should reach consumers in the form of lower retail prices.²

What It Would Mean for You as a Cardholder

The most direct effect on ordinary cardholders would likely fall on rewards. Points, cash back, airline miles, and hotel perks are largely funded by interchange revenue. If that revenue shrinks, issuers have less money to pour into rewards programs. Airlines for America has warned the bill “could jeopardize airline credit-card rewards,” pointing to what happened after debit card reform.⁷ Research on interchange caps in Europe and Australia found that those reforms reduced rewards, raised annual fees, and caused some card products to disappear.

Co-branded cards face the sharpest risk. Airline and hotel cards with lavish sign-up bonuses and ongoing perks generate premium interchange rates that fund those rewards. If merchants can route transactions around the network those cards run on, the economics behind the most lucrative travel programs could weaken. For a cardholder who earns thousands of dollars a year in rewards value, a marginal drop in retail prices that may never materialize is a poor trade.

Banks have also argued that lost interchange revenue would make issuing credit cards more expensive, leading to fewer approvals for low-income and subprime borrowers, higher annual fees, or higher interest rates where the law allows. Whether this would actually happen is speculative, but it mirrors what banks did on the debit side after the 2010 Durbin Amendment: cut free checking and raise account maintenance fees to offset lost interchange.

What It Would Mean for Merchants

For businesses that accept cards, the upside is real. If two networks compete for every transaction, a merchant can route through whichever charges less. Large retailers with thin margins would benefit most, since even a fraction of a percentage point off billions in annual card volume adds up.³

Whether shoppers ever see those savings at the register is the harder question. When the 2010 Durbin Amendment cut debit card interchange, research found little evidence that merchants passed savings on. Most studies concluded that retailers kept the difference.

The Durbin Amendment Precedent

The 2010 Durbin Amendment, part of Dodd-Frank, capped debit card interchange fees at banks with more than $10 billion in assets. Per-transaction interchange fell 52%, from about $0.50 to $0.24.

Banks responded. The share of large banks offering free basic checking dropped from 60% to 20%. Average monthly checking fees rose from $4.34 to $7.44, and minimum balances to avoid fees climbed roughly 25%. Overall, fees at covered banks ended up about 15% higher than they would have been without the amendment. Debit rewards programs largely disappeared.

That history is the strongest argument opponents have. The Durbin Amendment did cut interchange, but the benefits went to merchants while the costs landed on consumers through higher banking fees and lost perks. Supporters of the current bill counter that the mechanism is different this time, relying on network competition rather than a hard price cap, and say that should produce a better outcome. That claim is untested.

Community banks and credit unions worry the $100 billion exemption in the new bill would be hollow in practice for the same reason it was on the debit side: after the 2010 law, exempt small banks still saw their interchange revenue decline because merchants and processors gravitated toward the lower regulated rates.⁸

Where the Bill Stands Now

The Credit Card Competition Act has been introduced in every Congress since 2022 with bipartisan cosponsors in both chambers, and it has failed to advance as a standalone bill each time. The current version, S.3623, carries the same core provisions.¹

In 2025, Senator Marshall tried to attach the bill’s text as an amendment to the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin bill that was a top Republican priority.⁹ The Senate passed the GENIUS Act 68-30 without including the amendment.¹⁰

Lobbying stays heavy on both sides. Merchant groups, led by the Merchants Payments Coalition, push for passage. Banks, card networks, credit unions, and airline loyalty programs push back. The bill’s fate likely depends on whether its sponsors can attach it to another moving vehicle or build enough standalone support to force a floor vote.

1
Congress.gov. S.3623 – Credit Card Competition Act of 2026
2
U.S. Senate. Short Summary of the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023
3
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin. Durbin, Marshall Reintroduce The Credit Card Competition Act
4
International Center for Law & Economics. The Credit Card Competition Act’s Potential Effects on Airline Co-Branded Cards, Airlines, and Consumers
5
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Durbin Calls on CEOs of Visa, Mastercard, United Airlines, and American Airlines to Testify Before the Judiciary Committee Regarding Credit Card Competition
6
Merchants Payments Coalition. Credit and Debit Card Swipe Fees Hit New Record of $187.2 Billion
7
Reuters. Credit-Card Cash Reshapes US Airline Loyalty and Profit
8
JD Supra. Credit Card Competition Act of 2026 – Implications for Card Issuers, Payment Networks, and Consumers
9
ABA Banking Journal. Proposed Amendment Would Add Credit Card Competition Act to Senate Stablecoin Bill
10
America’s Credit Unions. GENIUS Act Clears Senate Without Interchange, Credit Card Rate Cap Amendments