Interchange fees

The e-commerce giant is adding a surcharge for Visa credit card payments in Singapore. It's a tactic reminiscent of the time its big-box rival outright banned the card brand in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in a bid to lower its costs.

Shopkeepers and other establishments say banks' costs have fallen substantially in recent years but interchange prices have held steady since the Federal Reserve capped them in 2010.

Shop owners and other establishments say banks' costs have fallen substantially in recent years but interchange prices have held steady since the Federal Reserve capped them in 2010.

While U.S. regulators pressure Visa and Mastercard, there's ample choice, particularly when compared to the national debit rails that exist in most of the world, says Intrepid Ventures' Eric Grover.

Visa and Mastercard are facing fresh opposition from U.S. retailers in a long-running legal fight over the fees merchants pay each time consumers swipe their credit or debit card at checkout.

Mastercard and Visa's one-year delay is only a partial victory for retailers, who want the networks to have less power to set rates.

Visa and Mastercard are postponing plans to boost the fees U.S. merchants pay when consumers use credit cards online, pushing back the changes another year to April 2022 because of the pandemic.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., went after Visa and Mastercard during an antitrust hearing Thursday in Washington, suggesting the card brands have likely been looking for a way to increase fees and offset previous legal or regulatory pressure on their pricing structures.

The update, delayed from last year, would be the most substantial change to the interchange rate structure in a decade — and the card networks have not signaled plans to delay it further.

CardX, which enables merchants to add a fee for accepting credit cards, won by showing how its product provides transparency to consumers.

Noninterest income from Paycheck Protection loans and mortgage refinancings isn't enough to make up for shortfalls elsewhere, and growth prospects are hard to identify.

A showdown between megabanks such as JPMorgan Chase and the likes of Apple and PayPal could be the prelude to a broader fight.

In a post-Brexit move, Mastercard is raising interchange rates for card-not-present transactions on U.K.-issued cards when spent with European merchants.

The fees banks charge to merchants have skyrocketed because people are making more purchases using their credit cards during the pandemic. Lawmakers can cap these fees before they further eat into retailers' profits.

The U.K. Supreme Court has rejected Mastercard’s attempt to force individual lawsuits over claims the card brand overcharged consumers and negatively impacted competition for more than a decade.

More lending regulation and interchange restrictions are on tap, says Intrepid Ventures' Eric Grover.

The pandemic has altered a variety of consumer behaviors, and that could make a difference in what sort of interchange and interest revenue financial institutions see in their credit and debit portfolios as they close out 2020.

Deposits have piled up, curtailing overdrafts and other fees. The trend could force lenders to find other ways to make money — or start cutting to the bone.

As the pandemic has stretched on further into 2020, with more lockdowns and economic disruption predicted heading into the fall and winter, continuing to offer fee waivers has not always proved financially viable.

Advocates of allowing merchants to add a surcharge to defray the cost of credit card interchange have had to overcome network bureaucracy, state laws and even ingrained habits among the merchants themselves.