JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC Financial have held preliminary talks to acquire a payments network owned by Fiserv, according to people familiar with the matter. The motivation mirrors Capital One's $50.6 billion purchase of Discover Financial: owning a card network exempts issuers from the Durbin Amendment's cap on debit-interchange fees, which collectively cost the industry billions in forgone revenue each year.

The discussions remain tentative, and several banks have already concluded a deal is unlikely. Executives worry that a coordinated purchase would invite intense political scrutiny, especially with Washington already focused on bank fees and consumer costs. The Fiserv network, known as Carat, processes transactions for merchants but lacks the scale of Visa or Mastercard, limiting its immediate impact.

For banks, the math is straightforward. The Federal Reserve's 21-cent-per-transaction ceiling on debit fees — set by the 2010 Dodd-Frank provision — has long been a drag on profitability and a barrier to funding debit rewards programs. Network ownership would let banks route transactions over their own rails, bypassing the cap entirely.

Yet the regulatory risk is substantial. Lawmakers who authored the Durbin Amendment have signaled they would seek to close any loophole exploited by a bank-owned network. With no guarantee of antitrust clearance and the 2024 election cycle heating up, the appetite for a fight may be lower than the envy sparked by Capital One's deal.