The European Union has accepted an offer by Visa and Mastercard to cut fees on payments made by tourists using cards issued outside the bloc to stave off fines and end an EU antitrust investigation.
The European Commission, which has waged a decades-long crackdown on payment and credit card fees, says that so-called interchange fees in which the merchant’s bank pays a charge to the cardholder’s bank, result in higher prices for consumers.
The fees will be reduced for five and a half years and Visa and Mastercard can be fined up to 10% of their global turnover if they fail to meet their commitments, reported The Financial Times.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the binding commitments “will reduce the costs borne by retailers,” and when taken with earlier decisions will “lower prices for European retailers to do business, ultimately to the benefit of all consumers.” Brussels has been investigating various transaction fees charged by the payment companies for over a decade.
Full Content: Financial Times
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