Berger underscores major concerns around House version of CCCA

NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger Tuesday sent a letter to the House, voicing major opposition to the recently introduced House version of the Credit Card Competition Act of 2022 (CCCA). Berger explained why the House companion bill, led by Representatives Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Lance Gooden, R-Texas, poses the same risks to consumers and Main Street as its Senate counterpart.

Berger reacted to the introduction of the bill earlier this week stating that it will “fail consumers at a time when financial well-being is of the utmost importance,” calling it a “bad idea, plain and simple.”

In the letter, Berger detailed the many negative impacts of CCCA underscoring its feeble attempts at expanding the failed Durbin Amendment, enacted in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Act which later proved to pass minimal, if any, savings to consumers. Berger noted a Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond study which showed that after the Durbin Amendment was implemented, “98.8 percent of merchants did not pass along savings realized from debit regulation to consumers and over 20 percent increased prices.”

“The Credit Card Competition Act of 2022 is not about competition,” wrote Berger. “It is about increasing the profits of big box retailers at the expense of consumers and financial institutions by creating government intervention in a free market and establishing a back-door price control on the credit card system.”

 

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