THE chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday requested the CEOs of American Airways, United Airways, Visa and Mastercard to testify at an April 9 listening to on financial institution card rivals, consistent with letters seen by Reuters.
Senator Dick Durbin talked about in a press launch to Reuters that American Airways and United Airways have “aggressively opposed efforts to convey competitors to the bank card market so as to shield the billions of {dollars} in windfall earnings their firms acquire by way of their co-branded bank cards. These airways have change into bank card firms that fly planes.”
The airways and financial institution card firms didn’t immediately comment.
Durbin talked about it was very important for the CEOs to testify “in defence of a establishment that allowed Visa and Mastercard to levy a complete of US$93 billion in bank card charges on shoppers, small companies, and others in 2022 alone.”
Main airways intently lobbied Congress closing yr to reject legal guidelines co-sponsored by Durbin and Republican Senator Roger Marshall they’re saying threatens their functionality to produce rewards financial institution playing cards that give buyers frequent flyer miles for making transactions.
Durbin’s letter talked about United’s Scott Kirby and American’s Robert Isom had beforehand rejected requests to appear.
In December, Reuters first reported the US Transportation Division is scrutinising the frequent flyer programmes of primary US airways for potential deceptive or unfair practices.
In October, Durbin and Marshal requested the Transportation Division and Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau about “troubling stories” of unfair and deceptive practices in airways’ frequent flyer and loyalty programmes.
Airways say there are on the very least 30 million US airline enterprise financial institution card holders, and the taking part in playing cards “make journey extra accessible and inexpensive.” They cite Federal Reserve data that 97 per cent of entire financial institution card spending is charged to assorted rewards accounts.
Durbin says the bill would deal with “outrageous” costs charged by Visa and Mastercard, and improve rivals by directing the Federal Reserve to ensure that large credit score rating card-issuing banks present a collection of on the very least two networks over which an digital credit score rating transaction is also processed. REUTERS
Supply: www.businesstimes.com.sg”