VISA and Mastercard have heeded to the European Commission (EC) guidance by announcing that they will significantly reduce their fees on ‘inter-regional’ payment charges.
The multi-national credit card processing giants have both confirmed that they will reduce fees on European retailers/merchants processing payments with external non-EU or non-European Economic Area (EEA) banks or payment services.
Moving forward both VISA and Mastercard have agreed to set a 0.2% fee on non-EU/EEA debit card payments, whilst retailers will be charged a standard 0.3% fee on non-EU/EEA credit card payments.
Inter-change fees refer to transferred charges, sanctioned by credit card processors on national banks, which pass costs onto the retailer/merchant undertaking the transaction.
Danish MEP Margrethe Vestager the current European Commissioner for Business Practice and Competition issued a statement backing VISA and Mastercard’s actions.
“The lowering of inter-regional charges, will lead to lower prices for European retailers to do business, ultimately to the benefit of all consumers” Vestager stated
The European Commission is the first competition authority in the world to intervene on inter-regional MIFs.
