US Credit Card Operators Will Have Gun Sales Code

US credit card giants announced on Friday that they have implemented a new trade code for gun retailers across the country that gun control activists say could help target potential mass shooters and drug dealers. of weapons.

The Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (IOS) said the system will separate arms and ammunition sellers, which activists say can help track suspicious transactions in those products.

Visa, the world’s largest payments network, said in a statement that it “will proceed with the next steps.” “While we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing partners.”

American Express said it will follow its usual business practices and will work with the indicated code and third-party partners for implementation.

“We are focused on ensuring that we have certain controls in place to comply with regulatory and credible responsibilities as well as illegal activities on our network,” the company said in a statement on Sunday.

A Saturday statement from Mastercard noted that a recent bipartisan action in Congress is a positive step toward “significantly” addressing gun violence. Now with the approval of the new code, the credit card company said the focus is on how the system will be implemented by merchants and their banks.

“We continue to support lawful purchases across our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders,” Mastercard said in a statement.

Almost all retail items have a merchant category code – prior to Friday’s decision, gun stores were classified under a sporting goods category.

Merchant codes track where a consumer used a credit card, but they do not signal what the shoppers’ specific items are. Pro-gun activists have argued that the code may unfairly scrutinize legal purchases of guns.

“This is not about tracking or prevention or any virtuous motivation,” the NRA said Sunday.

The New York Times revealed in 2018 that electronic payments were made to purchase weapons and ammunition used in some of the country’s mass shootings, such as Aurora, Colorado, San Bernardino, California, Orlando, Florida and Las Vegas.

Amalgamated Bank and some politicians, including New York Mayor Eric Adams and Senator Elizabeth Warren, lobbied IOS to implement the code. The bank first applied to ISO for the code last summer, an official said.

“The new code will allow us to fulfill our legal duty to report suspicious activity related to arms sales to authorities without blocking legal sales,” Priscila, president and bank, said in a statement on Friday.