Brussels, 31/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - After an initial statement of objections in 2009, the European Commission sent a renewed statement of objections on 31 July 2012 to Visa for violation of the EU's anti-trust rules in its multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) for credit card payments.
The MIFs are set by Visa for transactions with consumer credit cards in the European Economic Area (EEA). MIFs are an important part of the total cost that retailers must pay for accepting Visa's consumer payment cards and establish a minimum price for retailers. This cost forces retailers to increase their prices, hitting consumers
Following May 2012's ruling by the European General Court on Mastercard's MIFs (see EUROPE 10620), the Commission says that the same charges are applied by Visa to all cross-border transactions within the EEA and also domestic transactions within eight member states (Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden), restricting competition among issuing banks to the detriment of retailers, whose costs are inflated without conferring any benefit on consumers. The Commission doubts that Visa's MIFs are necessary to create efficiencies that benefit merchants and consumers and could therefore be entitled to an exception from the rules set out in Article 101 of the European treaty and anyway, Visa calculates MIFs in a way that does not give consumers a fair share of any advantages. The Commission holds the preliminary view that rules obliging cross-border acquirers to pay MIFs applicable in the country of transaction hinder cross-border acquiring and maintain the segmentation of national markets. The Commission considers that this breaches EU antitrust rules and prevents merchants from benefiting from lower MIFs in other member states.
Visa must now respond to the objections before the Commission takes the final decision. (FG/transl.fl)