Discover Card will become the first credit card issuer to track gun purchases made by their cardholders, starting in April 2023, Reuters reports.
This comes after Visa, Mastercard, and other major credit cards agreed to flag gun and ammunition purchases via a new sales categorization.
According to the Independent Journal Review, “Anyone using a Discover card to make a purchase in a gun store will have that purchase tracked, beginning in April.”
Discover has over 55 million cards in use, so a significant amount of information on gun purchases can be gathered through the company.
Discover Financial Services had already announced in February 2023 that it would allow its network to track purchases at gun retailers starting in April.
This move makes Discover the first among its peers to publicly give a date for moving ahead with the initiative aimed at helping authorities probe gun-related crimes.
A representative from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) stated that the code for tracking gun purchases was approved in September 2022 and that “the decision to use the new merchant category code is eventually left up to the users in the industry.”
Despite the controversy surrounding the tracking of gun purchases, Discover stated, “We remain focused on continuing to protect and support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy of cardholders.”
Discover handled 2% of the $9.56 trillion purchased on U.S. credit and debit cards in 2022, according to industry researcher Nilson Report, according to Reuters, while Visa had a 61% share, Mastercard 26% and American Express 11%.
