EU charges Visa over transaction fees

The European Commission accused payment network Visa Europe (V.N) on Monday of restricting competition between banks with its fees for cross-border transactions.

• “The statement of objections outlines the Commission’s preliminary view that Visa’s MIFs harm competition between acquiring banks, inflate the cost of payment card acceptance for merchants and ultimately increase consumer prices,” the Commission said in a statement.
• Visa confirmed in a statement that it had received the Commission’s charge sheet.
• The European Union’s antitrust regulators said they were concerned that Visa’s MIFs — cross-border multilateral interchange fee — hampered competition even though the network had recently cut charges to an average of 0.61 percent.
• Visa’s chief executive, Peter Ayliffe, said in a statement that the company was disappointed with the Commission’s charges.
• The Commission last week dropped its case against rival MasterCard (MA.N) after it drastically cut its charges.