When Congress returns in January, lawmakers will face renewed pressure to pass the so-called Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) championed by Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Roger Marshall.

As DCUC’s Chief Advocacy Officer, I urge Congress to stand with our servicemembers and veterans by rejecting this harmful legislation. Beneath its appealing name, the Marshall-Durbin proposal represents a serious threat to military families’ financial well-being, military readiness, and Americans’ access to responsible credit. This bill is not about “competition” or consumer savings at all – it is a retail industry power-grab that would hurt consumers and enrich a few big-box retailers at the expense of those who serve our nation.

Not Real Competition – Just Higher Costs and Risks for Consumers

The Durbin-Marshall CCCA is being sold as a pro-consumer reform, but history tells a different story. In reality, this proposal would undermine the secure, convenient credit card system that consumers and small businesses rely on. The bill would force credit unions and banks to route transactions through a government-mandated second network, likely a cheaper, less secure network, all under the guise of “network choice.” The immediate results would be alarming: weakened cybersecurity, heightened fraud risk, and reduced access to affordable credit – particularly for servicemembers, veterans, and working families.

False promises of savings are being used to justify this mandate.

We have seen this play out before. After the original Durbin Amendment capped debit card interchange fees in 2010, retailers largely kept the windfall for themselves instead of lowering prices. According to Federal Reserve data, about 75% of merchants made no price changes and 1 in 4 actually raised prices after debit fee caps – even as their costs fell. Consumers saw “little to no savings at checkout” while many banks (exempt credit unions included) had to scale back free checking and debit rewards programs to offset lost revenue.

In fact, one study found that debit card reward programs virtually vanished and free checking became 35% less available among affected institutions post-Durbin. There is no evidence that forcing “competition” in credit card networks now would benefit consumers any more than the 2010 experiment did. History shows retailers rarely pass on interchange savings – families end up with higher fees and fewer benefits, while retail giants pad their profit margins.

Threatening Military Families’ Financial Readiness

Perhaps most egregious is how this bill would harm military members and erode financial readiness, which the Department of Defense rightly recognizes as a pillar of overall military readiness. Defense-focused credit unions use interchange revenue to fund special programs for servicemembers – low-interest emergency loans for military families, reduced-rate credit cards for deployed troops, financial counseling, and more. These are not perks; they are lifelines that help our men and women in uniform avoid predatory lenders and stay financially stable during deployments and PCS moves. The Durbin-Marshall plan would directly threaten these lifelines by stripping away a vital source of funding. It undercuts the Pentagon’s own emphasis on financial readiness as mission-critical.

Military members also heavily rely on secure, worldwide credit card access – whether a young service member using a credit card to build credit responsibly, or a deployed servicemember depending on a card for purchases when carrying cash isn’t safe or practical. Forcing transactions onto potentially less secure, cut-rate networks raises the risk of fraud and data breaches. Consider the nightmare scenario of a Soldier or Airman in a combat zone dealing with a frozen account or fraud alert because their transaction was routed over a shoddy network. As I’ve noted before, no one wants to deal with cash in a deployed environment, and a personal security breach while in combat is a recipe for disaster. By degrading payment security and reliability, this bill creates needless financial distractions for military personnel that directly undermine readiness and focus.

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Undermining Credit Unions and Access to Responsible Credit

Community-based lenders like credit unions will be disproportionately hurt by interchange price controls or routing mandates. Proponents argue they carved out small institutions, but this is a cynical ploy. In practice, regulating the largest card issuers and networks forces changes across the entire payments ecosystem, squeezing smaller credit unions and community banks too. If the big players are compelled to overhaul systems and cut card benefits, the ripple effects – technology burdens, higher network fees, card reissuance costs – will hit every issuer, large or small. This is exactly what happened with debit cards in 2010, despite nominal exemptions. Smaller institutions ultimately face higher costs and fee pressure that make it harder to offer free accounts and low rates.

For military credit unions, those added costs and lost revenues mean they cannot reinvest as much in member services. Free checking accounts, low fees, and financial education programs will become less sustainable. In an inflationary economy, the last thing we should do is raise the cost of basic financial services for our servicemembers and working families. Yet that is exactly what this bill risks. Even access to credit itself could contract – a coalition letter noted that the CCCA could “reduce access to $700 billion in credit” and particularly hurt low-income borrowers’ credit options. Community lenders would be forced to scale back lending and tighten standards if their interchange income is slashed. In short, the Marshall-Durbin bill would make it harder for military families and average Americans to obtain affordable, responsible credit, pushing them toward higher-cost alternatives. This is a solution in search of a problem – credit cards are not broken, and consumers overwhelmingly value the rewards and protections they provide.

A Windfall for Retail Giants at the Expense of Servicemembers

Why, then, is this bill advancing? Because it delivers a windfall to some of the world’s largest retailers and e-commerce giants, like Walmart and Amazon, while everyday Americans pay the price. The retail lobby behind the CCCA wants to shift billions in costs from merchants to financial institutions that actually serve consumers. By routing transactions over the “cheapest” networks (often cut-rate processors with lower fees), retailers would save on interchange fees – with no obligation to pass a penny of those savings to consumers at the checkout. In fact, if debit card history is any guide, consumers will see none of the promised price relief. The only winners would be big-box retail chains enjoying higher profit margins. Meanwhile, the “cheapest” networks could be those that have underinvested in fraud prevention, data security, and customer service. For a few extra basis points of profit, the bill would steer Americans’ credit card data into networks that may lack robust protections – a dangerous trade-off.

It is galling that in pushing this agenda, some proponents have cynically tried to cloak it in military-friendly language. They even attempted to attach a last-minute “interchange study” to the defense authorization bill, implying it would help veterans at base commissaries. Let’s be clear: this was a thinly veiled ploy – commissary card fees are already covered by the government, and the proposed study would not reduce grocery prices for military families one bit. All it would do is lend credence to reviving the routing mandate in another form. As a united coalition of defense credit unions, military banks, and even civilian banking trade groups stated, these efforts are “exploitation dressed up as reform” – exploiting servicemembers and veterans as leverage in a retailer-led crusade to slash interchange costs. Our service members, especially our decorated heroes like Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients, deserve better than to be used as pawns in a corporate lobbying fight.

Stand with Military Families – Reject the Marshall-Durbin Bill

Congress should see the Marshall-Durbin CCCA for what it is: a threat to consumers, a threat to community financial institutions, and a threat to our military’s financial readiness, all to boost the bottom line of a few retail giants. The current payment card system isn’t perfect, but it works well for millions of Americans – it’s secure, convenient, and it funds benefits like fraud protection and card rewards that people depend on. This bill would put that system in jeopardy and make everyday banking more expensive for those who can least afford it, including young enlisted families and veterans on fixed incomes.

On behalf of the Defense Credit Union Council and the hundreds of military-focused credit unions serving our troops, I call on Congress to oppose the Credit Card Competition Act in the strongest terms. Do not allow it to be attached to any must-pass legislation, and do not give it credence in the new session. Our servicemembers, veterans, and working families have earned better than a false “reform” that would pick their pockets and endanger their financial security. In 2025, credit unions helped stave off this harmful measure; now in 2026, we urge lawmakers to stand with us again to protect those who protect us. Reject the Marshall-Durbin bill and keep America’s focus on policies that truly support our armed forces and the financial institutions that have their backs. It’s time to put our nation’s military members first – not the profit margins of big-box retailers.

Congress, do the right thing: reject this bill and protect our military’s financial readiness. Our nation’s heroes and their families are counting on you.