EuroCommerce lodges new complaint over Visa fees

Nicole Mezzasalma

Print Article E-Mail Article E-Mail Author

The development follows the announcement in April of a European Commission investigation into Visa’s fee structure

Europe-wide retail organisation EuroCommerce has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission about credit card operator Visa’s charges. The move is set to strengthen the travel-retail Fair Payment Alliance (FPA)’s case against the credit card companies’ multilateral interchange fee (MIF) for cross-border transactions, which travel retailers must pay and is non-negotiable.

An EC investigation of MasterCard forced the credit card firm to reach a settlement, forcing it to reduce its cross-border rates to a maximum of 0.3% for consumer credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards from July 1. Despite Visa’s recent decision to reduce its MIF to 0.5% and €0.15 ($0.21) for debit card transactions, EC commissioner Neelie Kroes concluded that the company’s cross-border charges should be tested again.

FPA head and Kappé chairman Jacques Parson said: “We have reached a key moment with our credit card activity. We have a much stronger position with MasterCard, and EuroCommerce’s complaint about Visa, which we discussed last week at our coordinating meeting in Brussels, is a strong submission on the unfair problems retailers face when accepting cross-border credit cards.”

He added: “While we wait to see how this investigation develops, I will take this opportunity to urge all travel retailers to examine their contracts with their banks to ensure that they and their customers benefit from the Commission’s settlement with MasterCard from July 1. This will be worth a great deal to retailers in these turbulent economic times. We must be proactive because I suspect that the banks and MasterCard will not take the initiative. I invite the business to contact me for more information on how to approach the banks or to let me know if banks are not aware of this settlement when approached or if they automatically quote 0.3% as an agreed rate, rather than a maximum level.”

Parson concluded: “Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the successes to date on MasterCard and the current complaint about Visa are the result of a lot of effort, for which I would like to thank our network for their contribution. This has played a significant part in achieving success for our business, for travelling consumers and for retail across the EU.”