Retailers ask U.S. regulator to examine Visa, MasterCard fees

A coalition of trade associations for some of the world's largest retailers called on U.S. antitrust regulators to review fees charged by credit card companies after Amazon threatened to ban Visa cards in the UK.

The trade union group said it was concerned about "excessive" fees charged to retailers by Visa and rival Mastercard Inc. Amazon announced this week it would continue to accept Visa cards from British customers after saying it planned to ban such cards from its site from Wednesday due to rising transaction costs.

“We believe that U.S. authorities should take a close look at what Amazon is doing in the U.K. and need to be aware that many retailers here feel the same way,” the Merchant Payments Alliance said in a letter to regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, the FTC’s regulator.

“ Despite the reversal, Amazon’s move shows that even the largest retailers are frustrated by soaring card fees, and smaller retailers are faring even worse.”

Retailers have long complained about rising costs for debit and credit cards, which have become more expensive during the pandemic as credit card use has increased and more consumers shop online.

Visa defends the swipe fees, arguing that they help pay for technology and systems used to monitor for fraud and other abuse and allow consumers to spend freely and easily at millions of merchants around the world.

Retailers now spend more than $110 billion a year to accept credit and debit cards, according to industry publication The Nilson Report. While banks take the lion’s share of that money, it’s card companies like Visa and Mastercard that set the fees.

The Merchants Payments Coalition , whose members include trade associations such as the National Retail Federation and the National Grocers Association, has also sent letters to congressional committees, the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

"Merchants large and small are closely watching the development of Amazon's Visa card in the UK and hope that US policymakers will do the same," the coalition said in the letter. "However, few have the scale and resources of Amazon to take on an entity as powerful as Visa."

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