Fed ordered to break up credit card network monopoly, boost merchant choice
H.R. 7035 — Credit Card Competition Act of 2026 · Filed by Lance Gooden (R-TX) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 13, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Federal Reserve to write rules preventing large credit card issuers (those with over $100 billion in assets) and payment networks from forcing merchants and cardholders to use only one or two specific payment networks to process credit card transactions. It also bars networks from blocking merchants' ability to choose which network processes each transaction, and from penalizing merchants for routing transactions to competing networks. The bill exempts networks deemed national security risks and three-party systems (like American Express). The goal is to increase competition among payment networks and lower costs for merchants and consumers.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a regulatory mandate requiring the Federal Reserve to enforce network competition in credit card processing. It is not a tax measure, appropriation, or commemorative act—it is a structural competition rule targeting a concentrated market.
What the text implies
- The $100 billion asset threshold targets only the largest card issuers (primarily JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and a few others), leaving smaller issuers unaffected and potentially creating a two-tier system.
- The exemption for 'national security risks' and foreign-state-owned networks gives the Board and Treasury broad discretion to exclude networks from competition rules without transparent criteria, potentially shielding domestic networks from competition on national security grounds.
- The bill does not directly cap interchange fees or network fees; it only mandates routing choice. Actual fee reductions depend on whether merchants exercise choice and whether networks compete on price—outcomes are not guaranteed.
- Three-party system exemption (e.g., American Express) preserves the existing closed-loop model for premium cards, meaning high-fee premium card networks may avoid competition rules entirely.
- The 180-day implementation window after final regulations are prescribed is tight; compliance costs and system changes may be substantial for networks and issuers, potentially passed to consumers in the short term.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary consumers and merchants benefit from increased competition among payment networks, which typically reduces processing fees and interchange costs that are ultimately passed to consumers through lower prices or reduced merchant surcharges. The bill directly addresses a known market concentration problem where two networks (Visa and Mastercard) dominate, limiting merchant choice and keeping fees artificially high.
Who stands to gain
- merchants (lower processing fees and routing choice)
- smaller payment networks (access to larger issuer portfolios)
- consumers (lower prices/fees from merchant savings)
Named in the bill
Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Secretary of the Treasury, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Electronic Fund Transfer Act, Truth in Lending Act
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans.
- Jan 13, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 13, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
47 lobbying clients named this bill on 49 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $26,934,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 7 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 99% of bills with at least one filing.
Lance Gooden, the sponsor, reported $690,556 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $26,500 of that came from 5 PACs tied to these lobbying clients.
- Amazon.com Services LLC — $4,360,000 on 1 filing
- American Bankers Association — $3,510,000 on 1 filing
- Boeing Company — $2,770,000 on 1 filing
- Visa, Inc. — $2,150,000 on 1 filing
- Nfib (national Federation of Independent Business) — $1,670,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (7,154 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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