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Mastercard and Visa extend cap on inter-regional fees for tourist cards in EU

Visa and Mastercard have committed to keep a cap on tourist card fees in place for another five years, says the European Commission.

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Mastercard and Visa extend cap on inter-regional fees for tourist cards in EU

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

In 2019, the US payments giants agreed to cut interchange fees for payments made in Europe by cards issued elsewhere by an average of 40% following an EU anti-trust investigation.

That deal was set to run for five years, until November 2024, but has now been extended for another five years, to November 2029.

For card present transactions, the fees will remain capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. For card not present transactions, the caps stays at 1.15% for debit cards and 1.5% for credit cards.

The 2019 agreement came after the two payment card schemes were berated by the EU's competition watchdog for applying higher inter-regional interchange fees for European retailers accepting payments from cards issued outside the EEA, which it claimed increased prices for consumer goods and services across the region.

Despite the extended deal, the EC warns that the "voluntary undertakings by Visa and Mastercard do not prevent the Commission from conducting investigations or opening proceedings should the Commission obtain concrete evidence showing that the current caps would not be appropriate anymore".

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