Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) last week filed an amendment that would add the ABA-opposed S. 4674 and a related study to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act, which is scheduled for consideration later this month. The Durbin-Marshall bill would create new credit card routing mandates, applying certain Durbin Amendment provisions affecting debit card to the credit card sector.
The study amendment would require the Defense Department and Treasury Department to coordinate on creating a report of the top 10 debit and credit card issuing financial institutions whose cards are used at military concessions. The overall amount of card acceptance fees charged to these merchants would then be further broken out by that associated with purchases by Purple Heart recipients, former prisoners of war, injured veterans and other groups.
The American Bankers Association strongly opposed the effort to add the unrelated Durbin-Marshall bill and the study amendment to the annual defense spending bill. “A proposed government mandate that will rob military families of their credit card rewards and undermine their data security has no business being added to annual legislation designed to bolster our national defense, much less enacted into law,” noted ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols. “We will aggressively oppose this misguided bill and ask every lawmaker to reject including it in the NDAA.”
ABA continues urging bankers to take grassroots action opposing Durbin-Marshall and its companion bill in the House.
