When a powerful industry rakes in billions for doing something that should have a negligible cost, it will say almost anything to keep that river of money flowing. It was true of the auto industry that constantly fought safety upgrades. Ditto for the oil companies that denied the reality of climate change.
And it’s true of the Wall Street giants who make using a credit card so expensive.
Your credit card, whether you pay the balance on time every month or not, is a bonanza for the giant banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Capital One — who dominate this business.
Why? When you swipe, tap, or insert your card, nearly 3 percent of the purchase price goes to Visa or Mastercard (the payment networks) and the bank that issued the card. Known as “swipe fees,” these charges added up to $198.25 billion for debit and credit in 2025 — an astonishing sum for a simple service.
These fees are the bane of small businesses in the United States, who often cite them as the second- or third-costliest item in their budgets, after real estate and labor. And retailing is a low-margin business, especially for smaller firms. If a merchant is wrestling with low profit margins — which is surely the case with your favorite coffee shop or bodega — they typically must pass that cost on to the consumer as a price hike or surcharge.
In short, swipe fees are a mess for both small businesses and consumers.
A cluster of lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — have teamed up to reform the system via a bill called the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), which would bust open the Visa-Mastercard duopoly. Put simply, merchants could use other networks to complete transactions (yes, they do exist). That would force the existing players to compete for the business of small firms through lower prices, not just jam them with higher costs.
The legislation enjoys broad support from consumer advocates, antimonopoly activists, and small businesses. Supporters, in short, want to make Visa and Mastercard compete to serve merchants. They have profit margins around 50 percent. They need a shakeup.
According to a recent report by my organization, Demand Progress, Visa, Mastercard, and the big banks have spent about $200 million on lobbying, campaign contributions, advertising, and fake grass-roots organizations to fight the CCCA.
The report documents what a powerful industry will do when it fears losing an exorbitantly profitable activity — like spreading money around to influencers of all kinds.
The industry’s lobbying group gave money so that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former reality TV star, could go on his “Great American Road Trip,” an industry-financed advertisement for the Trump administration. The industry has also engaged The Points Guy, a popular credit card website, in fighting change.
But, for sheer deceit, the astroturf masquerading as real grassroots support in favor of high swipe fees really stands out. Spread enough money around and suddenly Wall Street giants seem to have the little guys speaking up on their behalf.
The report, entitled, “How Wall Street Money Misleads,” includes detailed evidence about the Small Business Payments Alliance. The group, run by a New York public relations firm, spreads around videos of testimonials against reform from small businesses that have taken money from Visa, Mastercard, and major banks.
One small business group rightly linked this group to “industry-funded advocacy efforts designed to protect the status quo.”
For consumers, swipe fees are one of many ways that the credit card industry rips them off — alongside high interest rates, exorbitant late fees, and overdraft charges that pad the bottom lines of big banks that are raking in record profits. The year 2025 was a banner year for them — for the rest of us, not so much.
Change is possible. We can cap interest rates. We can limit late fees. We can restore rules curbing overdraft charges that Congress rolled back at Wall Street’s request. And, thanks to bipartisan support, we can pass reform of swipe fees. The first step is to ignore Wall Street’s nonsense.
