Trump Backs Swipe-Fee Bill That Could Reshape Your Credit Card Rewards

The credit card bill that the banking industry fears most just gained its most powerful ally yet. President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and top campaign lieutenants have endorsed the Credit Card Competition Act, the long-stalled bipartisan measure known as Durbin-Marshall, and they are championing it as an affordability pitch ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

The endorsement is the strongest signal yet that the bill, first introduced in 2022, could finally move. When Trump endorsed the bill's reintroduction back in January 2026, Visa and Mastercard shares fell roughly 4 to 5 percent in a single trading session. Banks now face a president who has made lowering household costs his closing argument to voters, and who sees swipe fees as a target.

What the bill would do

The Credit Card Competition Act, introduced in 2022 by Senators Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, with Vance as a co-sponsor when he served in the Senate, would require banks with at least $100 billion in assets to enable at least two unaffiliated payment networks on every credit card they issue.

In practice, that means each card would carry Visa or Mastercard plus a competing network such as NYCE, Star, or Shazam, and merchants would get to choose which network routes each transaction. The competition would be over the interchange fee, the fee the network sets that merchants pay every time a customer swipes. Visa and Mastercard dominate more than 80 percent of the US credit card market, and today merchants have almost no alternative when it comes to routing a card payment.

The merchants' case

Retailers have pushed for this change for years, and their argument is simple: the fees are enormous and families pay them without ever seeing them. The Merchant Payments Coalition says the bill would save merchants and consumers about $17 billion a year. Retailers argue that households pay roughly $1,100 to $1,200 a year in hidden swipe-fee costs baked into the prices of everyday goods.

The support is broad. Nearly 2,000 companies and almost 300 trade associations back the measure, from grocery chains to convenience stores. Large merchants have spent years lobbying for routing choice, and with Trump and Vance behind it, their campaign now has a populist edge, framed as taking on big banks to lower prices.

The banks' case

Banks and card issuers see it very differently. They argue that interchange fees are what fund the credit-card rewards consumers love, cash back, travel points, purchase protections, and that forcing competition on fees would push banks to gut those programs. The rewards that top cards advertise today exist because issuers collect fees on every swipe.

Critics also point to the rest of the world. When similar routing or fee-cap rules were tried in Europe and Australia, merchants did not clearly pass the savings on to consumers, they argue, the fees fell, but prices did not. In that telling, the bill would shrink rewards without actually making anything cheaper.

Key numbers

• $100 billion: the asset threshold above which banks would face the two-network requirement
• Over 80 percent: Visa and Mastercard's combined share of the US credit card market
• $17 billion a year: estimated merchant and consumer savings, per the Merchant Payments Coalition
• $1,100 to $1,200 a year: the hidden swipe-fee cost retailers say each family absorbs in prices
• Nearly 2,000 companies and almost 300 trade associations backing the bill
• 4 to 5 percent: how much Visa and Mastercard shares fell in a single session after Trump's January endorsement

What happens next

The bill's path runs through Congress, and its new heavyweight backers change the odds, but passage is still far from certain, and the banking lobby is formidable. Watch for movement in the lame-duck window after the November 3 midterms, when stalled bills often get one last push.

A parallel fight is playing out in court. The separate $38 billion Visa-Mastercard swipe-fee class settlement won preliminary approval from Judge Brian Cogan in June 2026, but on September 30 more than 950 retailers and trade groups asked the court to reject it, arguing it trims interchange by only a tenth of a percentage point. Class counsel must respond by October 14. If the settlement collapses, the pressure on Congress to act on the Competition Act could grow sharper still.

For cardholders, the practical takeaway: if the bill becomes law, the fees behind your rewards points get smaller, and your rewards could get smaller with them.