WASHINGTON–With Congress now having returned to Washington, CUNA is reporting it has updated its “Interchange Works: Protect My Card” website and is also backing new advertising that opposes the proposed Credit Card Competition Act.
That legislation seeks to reduce costs to merchants in routing credit card transactions, and has the strong support of retailers and merchants.
CUNA’s chief political officer, Richard Gose, said the advertising is aimed at “making sure that members of Congress…know the financial services industry side” of the interchange issue.
Opposing the bill is the primary focus of credit unions in the current Congress and was the subject of CU meetings with representatives in their home states and districts during the August recess.
Gose said the new advertising includes some small businesses and chambers that are starting to “speak out.”
New Research
Newly highlighted on the website, said Gose, is research around consumer behavior that has found:
- 51% of Americans surveyed have two to four cards
- 11% have five or more cards
- 27% have at least one card
- 10% of Americans do not have a card
- Of those with cards, 76% have an awards program attached. “But, more importantly,” said Gose, 42% of those people with rewards programs “buy things at their retail stores or restaurants and so forth” due to the programs
- 50% of people say they either go out to eat or go through a drive-through at least once or twice a week, and 43% choose to pay for those purchases with their credit card. “Three in 10 say if they didn't have a credit card or access to a credit card they would go out less often,”
Extremely Important
“When you look at the benefits of the credit card and the extension of credit it's extremely important for us to demonstrate to lawmakers not just the fact that we're providing credit, but low-cost credit to a lot of constituents, a lot of people just getting started that wouldn't have the opportunity to have that access to credit,” said Gose, adding that 79% of credit unions have a credit builder program of some type. “We don't want to see that derailed by this needless legislation.”
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