Sponsors (18)
The bill improves purchaser privacy and gives payment actors clearer rules by eliminating distinct firearms/ammunition MCCs, but creates compliance costs and removes a tool merchants and financial firms use to categorize and manage firearm-related transactions, complicating business operations and risk management.
People who purchase firearms and ammunition will have those transactions less easily identifiable because cardholders' purchases will no longer be tagged with a distinct firearms/ammunition merchant category code (MCC), reducing a data point that could be used to track or target purchasers.
Payment processors, card issuers, and merchants get clearer statutory guidance limiting how sensitive purchases may be categorized, reducing legal uncertainty about permissible merchant coding practices.
Merchants, banks, payment networks, and processors will incur system and compliance update costs to change transaction coding and procedures, expenses that may be passed on to merchants or consumers.
Retailers and payment services that rely on MCC-based classification will lose a straightforward way to categorize firearms/ammunition sales for accounting, fraud detection, chargeback rules, age-verification, and industry-specific services, complicating business operations and risk controls.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits entities that process credit card transactions from using MCCs that separately identify firearms or ammunition merchants.
Official title: To prohibit the use of a merchant category code that separately identifies firearms merchants or ammunition merchants, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by Andy Ogles · Last progress February 12, 2025
Prohibits banks, payment card networks, acquirers, issuers, and other entities that authorize, clear, or settle credit card transactions from assigning merchant category codes (MCCs) that specifically identify firearms merchants or ammunition merchants. The law simply removes the ability for payment industry participants to use separate MCCs to single out firearms- or ammunition-related merchants.