FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: J. Craig Shearman
(202) 257-3678 craig@shearmancommunications.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2026 — The Merchants Payments Coalition welcomed Vice President J.D. Vance’s call for credit card swipe fee reform, which came this afternoon amid growing White House and congressional support for action to keep the hidden fees from driving up prices for consumers.
“He has been the leader in the fight against Wall Street to bring down out-of-control credit card swipe fees, which is going to make life affordable for everyday Kansans and everyday Americans,” Vance said while campaigning for Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.
Vance, who cosponsored the Credit Card Competition Act while a member of the Senate, called swipe fee reform “an issue that’s close to my heart that Roger and I worked on when we were in the Senate together.” Marshall is the lead Senate sponsor of the bipartisan legislation.
“The president and vice president are standing up for Main Street and working Americans and sending a clear message to Congress,” MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel Doug Kantor said. “These fees have hurt American consumers and small businesses for far too long. It’s time for Congress to act.”
Vance’s remarks come just days after Trump said, “We will cut out-of-control credit card swipe fees, saving the average family at least $1,200 per year,” during his keynote address at last week’s Republican midterm convention. Trump added, “We will not allow Americans to pay seven to eight times more for those fees than they do in any other country.”
Trump has addressed swipe fees three times this year, previously saying in January that the bipartisan CCCA is needed “to stop the out of control Swipe Fee ripoff” and making similar remarks in August. Earlier this month, Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler said she is concerned about “fees that fall disproportionately on small businesses” when asked about swipe fees on Fox Business.
The CCCA has growing support across the political spectrum in Congress, where Senate Banking Committee members Sens. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., plus Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, became cosponsors in early August. The three joined existing sponsors Marshall, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Peter Welch, D-Vt. There are eight sponsors in the House, led by Reps. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
Credit card and debit card swipe fees have risen 80% since the pandemic and hit a record $198.25 billion in 2025. They are most merchants’ highest operating cost after labor, driving up prices by more than $1,200 a year for the average family.
Swipe fees for U.S. Visa and Mastercard credit cards average 2.36% of the transaction, which is the highest percentage in the industrialized world and compares with a limit of 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards in the European Union.
The fees are rising because of lack of competition. Visa and Mastercard, which control 80% of the market, each centrally set the swipe fee rates charged by all banks that issue cards under their brands and also restrict processing to their own networks. The CCCA would address that by requiring banks with at least $100 billion in assets to enable credit cards to be processed over at least one unaffiliated network like Star, NYCE or Shazam in addition to Visa or Mastercard. The measure is expected to result in competition over fees, security and service that would save merchants and their customers $17 billion a year and result in the gain of 54,000 retail jobs in the first year alone.
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.
