Visa is not to drop its fees

Recently MasterCard announced about its decision to decrease interchange fee for cross-border credit and debit transactions across Europe to comply with the European Commission's (EC) decision. As per investigations of the EC the multilateral interchange fees charged for cross-border transactions made via MasterCard and Maestro debit and credit cards contradicted EC Treaty regulations.

This made the public wander about similar measures towards Visa. However as it turns out Visa Europe is not going to drop charges on cross-border transactions using its payment cards despite MasterCard's decision.

Antitrust investigation into Visa Europe's interchange fee was started in March 2008. Nevertheless the credit card issuer claimed that the 0.7 percent charge was justified on cost grounds. Visa's fee was exempt from EU competition law from 2002 to December 2007.