Janice R. Andrews
The European Commission announced on Friday that Visa and Mastercard would raise the caps on tourist card fees for a further five years, until 2029. With this extension, the agreements to uphold a 0.2% fee cap on non-EU debit card payments and a 0.3% cap on credit card payments reached with EU antitrust regulators five years ago are still in place.
The fee caps were the outcome of an EU antitrust inquiry that started in 1997 with a complaint by industry lobby EuroCommerce. The probe was first launched in 2019. By doing this, Visa and Mastercard were able to avoid paying hefty fines. The corporations have now offered to extend these caps, which were originally scheduled to expire in November 2024.
The European Commission, which oversees antitrust laws throughout the EU, stressed the significance of these limits in a statement. “Inter-regional interchange fees for debit and credit card transactions under these schemes will remain capped for another five years until November 2029,” the statement stated. For debit card transactions made offline and credit card transactions made offline, the fee caps will remain at 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively. The limits for debit and credit card transactions made online will remain at 1.15% and 1.5%, respectively.
These interchange costs, sometimes referred to as swipe fees, are determined by Visa and Mastercard, the two main payment network operators, and are paid by retailers in order to accept their cards. The money that banks and other card issuers receive from these fees is substantial.
If there is proof that the current charge caps are no longer adequate, the EU competition enforcer has threatened to launch an investigation. This attention to detail guarantees that the pricing structure will always be reasonable and competitive for all stakeholders.
