FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: J. Craig Shearman
(202) 257-3678 craig@shearmancommunications.com
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2026 — The Merchants Payments Coalition welcomed concern about excessive credit card company profits voiced by President Donald Trump today during remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“The profit margin for credit card companies now exceeds 50%, one of the biggest,” Trump said.
The comment followed Trump’s endorsement last week of the Credit Card Competition Act, which he said is needed “to stop the out of control Swipe Fee ripoff.” Later the same day, lead sponsors Senators Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., along with Senator Peter Welch, D-Vt., formally reintroduced the bill in the Senate while Representatives Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., did the same in the House. Last Friday, Durbin cited Trump’s “unequivocal” endorsement on the Senate floor and said “let’s get this done.”
“The President is right — the credit card industry is making outrageous profits on the backs of Main Street merchants and their customers every day,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “A huge share of that profit comes from soaring swipe fees, and the president has called for passage of the Credit Card Competition Act to stop this ripoff. It’s time for Congress to follow that lead and get this bipartisan bill to the President’s desk to provide relief for the U.S. economy and improve affordability for American families.”
As noted by Trump, credit card industry profits are among the highest of any industry in the economy. Visa reported fiscal year 2025 profits of 50.3% and had quarterly profits of nearly 57% last summer. Mastercard hasn’t reported fiscal year earnings yet but showed profits of 45.3% in its most recent quarter. By contrast, net profits for merchants average about 3%, with Visa’s profits sometimes nearly 20 times that amount.
The CCCA is supported by nearly 2,000 companies and nearly 300 trade associations, as well as a broad coalition of consumer, labor, and pro-competition organizations. Just last week, consumer, antimonopoly and small business groups sent Congress a letter saying, “Reform is urgently needed to boost competition in credit card payments to relieve heavy cost burden borne most onerously by small businesses and consumers at a time when affordability is perhaps the top issue in modern American economic life.”
The CCCA is an effort to inject competition into the credit card processing market, which is dominated by Visa and Mastercard. Swipe fees are most merchants’ highest operating cost after labor and are too much to absorb, driving up prices by an estimated $1,200 a year for the average family.
Visa and Mastercard — which control 80% of the market — each centrally set swipe fees charged by banks that issue cards under their brands and also block transactions from being processed over other networks that could do the job with lower fees and better security. The legislation would require banks with at least $100 billion in assets to enable cards they issue to be processed over at least two unaffiliated networks — Visa or Mastercard plus a competitor like NYCE, Star, or Shazam.
Banks would choose which networks to enable, but merchants would then choose which to use, resulting in competition over fees, security, and service that is expected to save merchants and consumers $17 billion a year. Rewards would not be affected, security would be improved, consumers would still use the same cards, and community banks and all but one credit union would be exempt.
About MPC
The Merchants Payments Coalition represents retailers, supermarkets, convenience stores, gasoline stations, online merchants and others fighting for a more competitive and transparent card system that is fair to consumers and merchants. Follow MPC on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn for the latest on swipe fees.