Washington, D.C. — In response to news that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has filed an antitrust suit against Visa for using its power to box out competitors and rival platforms from the debit payments market, imposing unfair price hikes on consumers and small businesses, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Visa is the poster child for a monopolist middleman siphoning money from consumers and small businesses without providing any real value,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “According to the DOJ’s latest suit, Visa refused to follow laws designed explicitly to prevent payment processors from levying disproportionate fees on each debit transaction—which disproportionately hit lower income consumers that use debit the most. Visa’s response to the Durbin Amendment, passed as part of Dodd-Frank to protect consumers, was to impose exclusionary dealing contracts that locked up merchants’ volume and blocked out potential competitors — all so it could continue to collect billions in fees for processing debit transactions. We’re pleased to see the Antitrust Division bring this suit and make clear that Visa can no longer operate above the law at the expense of hard-working consumers and small business owners.”

“Furthermore, Visa’s abuses are not limited to the debit market. Congress should pass the Credit Card Competition Act to rein in Visa’s anticompetitive conduct in the credit card market similarly costing Americans billions.” Harper added. 

As the DOJ complaint reveals, Visa controls over 60% of all US debit transactions, generating more than $7 billion annually in network fees. Its market share for card-not-present transactions is even higher, 65%. In 2022, Visa made more from its U.S. debit business than from its credit business, with operating margins of 83% in North America. Despite competition from Mastercard—which only processes less than 25% of debit and card-not-present US transactions—and smaller PIN networks, the DOJ argues that Visa has entrenched its dominance through exclusionary contracts that lock up volume, insulating its network from rivals and foreclosing competition in nearly half the U.S. debit market. Fearing the rise of digital platforms like Apple Pay, PayPal, and Cash App, Visa offered lucrative incentives to potential competitors to prevent them from entering the market and “threatened…additional fees to dissuade their potential competitors’ innovation.” The complaint makes clear that millions of Americans, particularly low income consumers, use debit cards more than credit cards.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.