EuroCommerce accuses Visa of unfair practices and fees

An association of European retailers EuroCommerce announced the filing of a new complaint against Visa Europe. The association says that the fees imposed by Visa and its member banks on retailers violate the European competition legislation. EuroCommerce noted that it was the imposition of exactly such fees which led the European Commission to rule against MasterCard in December 2007, calling for the similar actions against Visa.

The complaint comes as a response to Multilateral Interchange Fee (MIF): when a customer pays with a Visa debit or credit card, the merchant has to pay to his bank a non-negotiable and completely opaque amount. Such practices are considered to undermine competition between banks because if more banks compete, the higher are the prices.

"The Visa interchange fee procedure is completely unfair", says Xavier Durieu, Secretary General of EuroCommerce. "Retailers are forced to pay for a range of services from which they do not benefit. Bank rates are the only services which retailers, even the largest ones, are not able to negotiate". 

Above this, the association also states that new rates published by Visa on 11 March 2009 are unfair too pointing to the fact that MasterCard rates on cross-border transactions are zero. Studies published by the bank themselves reveal that the cost of running a pan-European debit card, profit included, is not higher than 1 eurocent per transaction.