Survey: Consumers Want Lower ‘Swipe’ Fees, Believe CCCA Would Help

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 28, 2025) — The vast majority of consumers favor lower credit card “swipe” fees and those surveyed believe two-to-one that the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) would achieve that goal, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC).

“Consumers are tired of paying higher prices because of soaring swipe fees that transfer billions of dollars from Main Street to Wall Street each year,” said Doug Kantor, MPC Executive Committee member and National Association of Convenience Stores General Counsel. “These survey results show Americans want Congress to fix the broken U.S. payments system and that they aren’t falling for banks’ propaganda about why that can’t be done.”

A survey conducted for MPC last week found 71% of those polled said lower credit card swipe fees would be “a good thing,” compared with only 16% who disagreed. The survey found that twice as many people (48%) believe “more competition in the credit card market” would decrease swipe fees for merchants and consumers alike than believe the opposite (24%).

In addition, 63% of those surveyed said more competition over credit card swipe fees would make it easier for people to get credit cards, more than three times the number (20%) who said the opposite.

The online survey of 1,012 U.S. adults was conducted July 21-23 by the polling firm Big Village.

Swipe fees for Visa and Mastercard credit cards alone have more than quadrupled since 2010, reaching $111.2 billion last year, while total credit and debit card swipe fees hit a record $187.2 billion. The fees are most merchants’ highest operating cost after labor, driving up prices by nearly $1,200 a year for the average family.

The fees are rising largely because Visa and Mastercard each centrally price-fix swipe fee rates charged by all banks that issue cards under their brands and also restrict processing to their own networks. Under the CCCA, however, banks with at least $100 billion in assets would enable credit cards to be processed over at least one unaffiliated network like Star, NYCE or Shazam in addition to Visa or Mastercard.

The measure is expected to result in competition over fees, security and service that would save merchants and their customers $17 billion a year. Rewards would not be affected, security would be improved, consumers would still use the same cards, and community banks and all but one credit union would be exempt.

NSGA is a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC).