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Melanated communities in Colorado and across the country have historically and perpetually faced systemic barriers to credit and banking access. Melanated communities are already chronically underbanked, including 27% of Black families and 18% of Hispanic families. And , too often for those who are “banked,” the understanding of how to use these accounts for their benefit while keeping money in interest-bearing accounts and investments is not the norm.
While work has been done to expand credit and banking access to our communities, this progress will be at risk if Congress enacts the Credit Card Competition Act . Even though the sponsors, like Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, claim that the legislation will help consumers, the truth is that the bill would actually benefit giant retail chains at the expense of marginalized communities.
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The idea behind this bill originated over a decade ago, when Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois made an amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act . His amendment made several changes to the way debit cards are processed, in an attempt to lower the fees that merchants pay to process them. Policymakers thought that doing so would create a trickle down effect, as smaller transaction fees would save retailers money, who in turn would pass on these savings to consumers through lower prices.