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ABA: The American Bankers Association
Letter to Congress & Regulators

State Bankers Association Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on November 19, 2024

  • Published December 18, 2024

Re: U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on November 19, 2024
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Dear Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Graham:

On behalf of the thousands of financial institutions of varying sizes that serve merchants and consumers across the country, we are writing to express our disappointment that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (the Committee) neglected to include a credit card issuer or banking trade association at the hearing on November 19, 2024. As a result, the Committee and the public failed to receive testimony from a major group of U.S. market participants that is core to facilitating one of the most vibrant credit card markets in the world.

The hearing was framed as a discussion on antitrust, yet it failed to include several parties as witnesses. There are six parties in an electronic payment transaction—the cardholder, merchant, network, processor, and financial institutions for both the cardholder (i.e., the issuing bank) and merchant (i.e., the acquiring bank).

Importantly, thousands of U.S. banks and credit unions issue credit cards. Using this incredible system, a customer of the smallest bank or credit union in the U.S. can, using their credit card, buy a good or service with a short-term revolving line of credit virtually anywhere in the world at any time. There are six global payment networks and four of them are U.S. entities—a tremendous advantage for the United States and a major contributor to the projection of U.S. economic power. These networks were built and are maintained and upgraded by the ongoing investments by banks and networks. Community banks also rely on interchange fees to pay for rewards programs and fraud protection, and to underwrite affordable lines of credit. The payments system is critical infrastructure that fuels our economy—without it, commerce grinds to a halt. We hope lawmakers recognize the enormous resources, investment, and innovation it takes to make this system secure, ubiquitous, and seamless for the parties involved in the transaction—consumers, merchants and banks.

Download the joint letter to read the full text.

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