Visa, Mastercard Swipe Fees Targeted in Planned Senate Bill

  • Democrat Durbin, GOP’s Marshall set to introduce legislation
  • The bill is intended to ‘inject real competition’ into market

   

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
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Two US senators plan to introduce legislation as early as this week that would give merchants the ability to route Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. credit-card transactions over alternative networks.

The legislation -- set to be introduced by Democratic Richard Durbin of Illinois and Republican Roger Marshall of Kansas -- would direct the Federal Reserve to make sure that banks with more than $100 billion in assets ensure that their credit cards provide a choice of at least two networks that can be used to process electronic credit-card transactions, according to a handout provided by Durbin’s office.