U.S. Senators are Preparing a Bill Targeting Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) - WSJ

Two U.S. senators are preparing a bill that would allow merchants to process many Visa (NYSE: V) and MasterCard (NYSE: MA) transactions over different networks, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The bill will apparently be introduced as soon as this week by Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, in an attempt to increase competition between U.S. credit card networks, an area Visa, and MasterCard have dominated.

According to the WSJ, banks and significant card networks lobbied Senator Marshall's office to convince them not to sign the bill. However, he decided to proceed after speaking to merchants, including small businesses, restaurants, and gas stations, regarding rising credit-card fees set by Visa and Mastercard.

If the WSJ is correct, they said that once the bill is introduced, the Senate parliamentarian will decide which committee it goes through, which will likely be the Senate Banking Committee. However, Senator Durbin and Senator Marshall are not on the banking committee.

Microsoft shares are down 0.5% Wednesday, after reclaiming some of its earlier losses in reaction to the report, while Visa is down 2.5%.

By Sam Boughedda

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