Visa, Amazon settle fee dispute
Amazon and Visa today officially ended their spat over the card company’s fees paid by U.K. credit consumers, a disagreement that had threatened to spill over to the U.S. and other markets.
READ MORE +Decline of Cash Spotlights Swipe Fees
The shift away from cash is welcome news for card networks and banks. But it’s bad news for merchants and their customers, writes National Retail Federation Vice President Leon Buck.
READ MORE +Merchants Association Cites Visa Study in Calling for Lower Fees
A new study by Visa shows the importance of bringing under control “swipe” fees charged to process credit and debit cards as consumers and small businesses move away from cash and the fees exacerbate record inflation in consumer prices, the Merchants Payments Coalition said this week.
READ MORE +Merchants Call to Bring Swipe Fees Under Control as Card Use Increases
Sixty-four percent of small businesses surveyed expect to go cashless over the next decade, while 41% plan to not accept cash within the next two years, according to a new study by Visa. Eighteen percent of small businesses are already cashless. The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) says these findings by Visa show the importance of bringing swipe fees under control, as Americans move to more digital forms of currency.
READ MORE +A Central Bank Digital Currency Could Improve Payments, Fed Says
The Federal Reserve has released a white paper on the potential creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a welcome step according to the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC).
READ MORE +Alternative Payment Firms Capitalize on Amazon-Visa Tensions
Amazon's short-lived threat to ban Visa credit cards in the U.K. may have been little more than a negotiating tactic to lower the fees the retailer pays, but many alternative payment providers still see it as an opening to convince merchants and consumers to use their products instead.
READ MORE +US Retailers Coalition Urges Regulators to Scrutinize 'Excessively High Fees' Charged by Visa, Mastercard
The Merchants Payments Coalition on Wednesday urged US regulators and lawmakers to scrutinize what it called"excessively high fees" charged by Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) to process transactions for retailers. The development came after Amazon.com (AMZN) said in November it would stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK due to the continued high cost of payments. The company reversed that decision earlier this week.
READ MORE +Merchants Call on U.S. Regulators to Examine Swipe Fees
The Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC) has sent a letter to U.S. antitrust regulators to examine swipe fees charged by major credit card companies in the U.S. after Amazon threated to ban U.K.-issued Visa cards in the U.K. and sequentially reversed the decision.
READ MORE +Amazon Take On Visa Over Fees All Retailers Set To Benefit If They Win
Retailers are demanding cheaper fees from credit card Companies, who are seen as charging excessive fees as online trade drives bigger credit card transactions. Retailers now spend more than A$152 billion accepting credit and debit cards every year, according to the industry publication the Nielsen Report.
READ MORE +Interchange Fees in US Antitrust Spotlight After Amazon UK Abandons Visa Card Ban
In the U.K., Amazon’s ban on Visa cards has been abandoned, but the ripple effects may last long and reach far. To that end, some of the biggest retailers in the world — via the Merchants Payments Coalition — sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Wednesday (Jan. 19) urging those regulators to take a deeper look into credit card fees.
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