Senators Moreno and Lummis endorse Credit Card Competition Act, taking aim at Visa and Mastercard dominance

Two senators best known for championing crypto legislation have turned their attention to a different kind of financial disruption. Senators Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) cosponsored the Credit Card Competition Act (S. 3623) in early August, joining Senator Angus King (I-ME) in backing a bill that would chip away at the near-duopoly Visa and Mastercard hold over credit card processing.

The bill’s core requirement is straightforward: banks with more than $100B in assets would have to enable at least two unaffiliated payment networks on their credit cards. Right now, most credit cards route transactions through either Visa or Mastercard, giving those two companies enormous pricing power. The legislation wants to create a world where merchants can route payments through competing networks, theoretically driving down the fees they pay on every swipe.

A bipartisan coalition with unusual bedfellows

The Credit Card Competition Act was reintroduced in January 2026, and it has assembled a bipartisan coalition. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Peter Welch (D-VT) were already on board before Moreno, Lummis, and King signed on.

Former President Trump publicly endorsed the legislation before this latest round of cosponsors joined.

Merchant groups were enthusiastic. The Merchants Payments Coalition and the National Association of Convenience Stores both voiced support, framing the bill as a necessary competitive correction in a market that has long tilted in favor of the largest financial institutions.

Why Moreno and Lummis, and why now

Both Moreno and Lummis have invested significant political capital in crypto-focused legislation, particularly the CLARITY Act, which deals with digital asset market structure. Reports have surfaced of tensions between these senators and the banking industry over delays related to that bill.

Whether or not the Credit Card Competition Act cosponsorship represents any kind of message to the banking lobby, it does put Moreno and Lummis in a position where they’re pressuring large financial institutions on two fronts simultaneously. On one hand, they’re pushing for clearer crypto regulations that banks have been slow to embrace. On the other, they’re now backing legislation that directly threatens one of the banking industry’s most profitable revenue streams.

The opposition isn’t just from who you’d expect

Visa, Mastercard, and the largest card-issuing banks have opposed the bill. Their argument centers on rewards programs, the cashback percentages and travel points that have become central to how banks market credit cards to consumers. The industry’s position is that interchange fees fund those rewards, and forcing cheaper network routing would starve the programs of revenue.

Credit unions have also raised concerns, warning that reduced interchange revenue could hurt smaller institutions that depend on those fees to fund services. The bill technically only applies to banks with more than $100B in assets, which should insulate smaller credit unions from the routing mandate itself. But critics argue the downstream effects on interchange fee structures could ripple across the entire industry regardless of the size threshold.

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