Sponsors (3)
The bill aims to expand merchant choice and guard against risky foreign-controlled networks—potentially lowering fees for consumers—but may raise short-term compliance and implementation costs and, depending on exceptions, could inadvertently concentrate market power with the largest payment networks.
Merchants (especially small businesses) can route card transactions to lower-cost networks, reducing merchant card-processing fees and potentially lowering prices for consumers.
Merchants (particularly small merchants) are protected from being forced to adopt exclusive authentication/tokenization schemes, preserving interoperability and reducing vendor lock-in and switching costs.
Financial institutions and regulators gain a public list identifying payment networks that pose national-security risks, helping them avoid risky foreign-state-controlled networks and prioritize oversight.
Merchants and acquirers may see reduced practical routing choices and risk greater market concentration if the bill effectively limits processing to one or two networks, which could entrench the largest networks and weaken competition.
Merchants and payment processors will face operational and implementation costs to enable multi-network routing and remain compliant, imposing short-term expenses and administrative burdens.
Large card issuers and financial institutions may incur higher compliance and contract-renegotiation costs due to limits on network agreements and new routing rules.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Fed to ban contractual routing limits by large credit‑card issuers and publish a list of payment networks with national security risks, enabling merchant-directed routing.
Requires the Federal Reserve Board to write rules that stop large credit‑card issuers and payment-card networks from using contracts to limit which networks a credit card can use, and to bar penalties or technical rules that prevent merchants from choosing how to route transactions. It also directs the Board, in consultation with the Treasury, to publish and regularly update a public list of payment card networks that pose national security risks or are tied to foreign state actors. The rules must be completed within one year and take effect 180 days after final issuance; they exclude three‑party card systems and apply only to "covered card issuers" (issuers with large asset size) and defined payment networks.
Introduced January 13, 2026 by Roger Wayne Marshall · Last progress January 13, 2026