A UK court has granted Visa and Mastercard permission to challenge a landmark ruling that found their multilateral interchange fees anti-competitive, extending one of the payments industry’s longest-running legal disputes.
Visa and Mastercard have been granted permission to appeal a landmark UK ruling that found their multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) breached competition law, reopening a case with significant implications for merchants, card schemes and the wider payments ecosystem.
The decision, issued by the Court of Appeal on 17 March, allows both card networks to challenge a June 2025 judgment by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), according to Reuters. The original ruling concluded default interchange fees set by the two companies were anti-competitive.
That earlier ruling, handed down after the first phase of a long-running case involving around 2,100 merchants, found that the fees restricted competition under retained EU law. It marked a major moment in UK payments litigation, establishing liability but leaving questions of damages and cost pass-through to subsequent proceedings.
Appeal moves dispute into new phase
The Court of Appeal’s latest decision does not revisit those findings directly but instead confirms Visa and Mastercard can formally contest them at a higher court level.
Both companies had indicated immediately after the CAT’s June ruling that they would seek to appeal, arguing the Tribunal’s conclusions were flawed. The Court of Appeal’s decision now allows them to do so, setting the stage for a further round of legal argument on the core question of whether interchange fees unlawfully restrict competition.
The case forms part of the Merchant Interchange Fee Umbrella Proceedings, a collection of claims brought by thousands of UK businesses challenging the fees applied when customers pay by card.
These fees, paid by acquiring banks to issuing banks and ultimately borne by merchants through the Merchant Service Charge, have long been a point of contention across global payments markets.
Earlier rulings strengthened merchants’ position
Since the June 2025 liability judgment, the case has progressed through additional stages. In February 2026, the CAT ruled in a separate decision that Visa and Mastercard had failed to demonstrate that merchants passed on the cost of interchange fees to consumers, an argument central to limiting potential damages.
That finding was seen as reinforcing the claimants’ position ahead of future hearings on quantum, though the overall outcome of the litigation remains contingent on the appeals process now underway.
The combination of liability and pass-on rulings has placed increased focus on the scale of potential damages, although no final figures have yet been determined.
Long-running scrutiny of interchange fees
Interchange fees have been subject to regulatory and legal scrutiny for more than a decade. Critics, including merchant groups and some policymakers, have argued that the fees inflate the cost of accepting card payments and limit competition in the payments market.
Card networks, however, have consistently maintained that interchange plays a central role in balancing the incentives of issuers, acquirers and merchants, supporting investment in security, fraud prevention and global acceptance.
The UK litigation sits alongside broader international debates over the role of card schemes in payments infrastructure. In recent years, regulators have explored ways to increase competition, including promoting alternatives such as account-to-account payments and open banking-based solutions.
At the same time, card usage remains dominant. Industry data has shown continued growth in both the volume and value of card transactions, underlining the continued centrality of Visa and Mastercard’s networks despite regulatory pressure and technological change.
