In a recent interview to Bloomberg Businessweek, Joaquin Almunia, EU’s antitrust chief, said that Visa Europe should match MasterCard’s lower fee for credit cards in an effort to settle a European Union antitrust investigation. More specifically Almunia told Bloomberg News that the best way to advance is “as a first step, to agree on this 0.3 percent to be on equal terms with its main competitor MasterCard.”
Visa, MasterCard and their issuing partners in the US have recently agreed to a settlement with merchants over credit-card swipe fees that could be worth as much as $7.75 billion.
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In 2009, to settle an EU complaint, Visa Europe agreed to lower some of fees assessed for debit-card transactions.
At the time both Visa Europe and MasterCard argued that the fees were necessary to fund the development of their payment systems. American Express does not have this problem as it operates as the intermediary between purchaser and merchants and negotiates fees directly with retailers.
At this point it is safe to say that the EU’s investigation into card fees will continue as will continue the retailer’s complaints about the costs associates with card transactions.
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