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Visa (New York Stock Exchange:V) and Mastercard (New York Stock Exchange:MA) will prolong limits on tourist card fees set five years ago with European Union antitrust regulators, extending them for an additional five years until 2029, the European Commission said on Friday, Reuters reported.
In 2019, companies agreed a 0.2% fee cap for non-EU debit card payments and a 0.3% fee cap for credit card payments to resolve an EU antitrust investigation.
“Interregional interchange fees for debit and credit card transactions under these schemes will remain capped for another five years until November 2029,” the Commission said in a statement, Reuters reported.
For online transactions, fee caps will remain at 1.15% for debit cards and 1.5% for credit cards.
Card transfer fees, often referred to as swipe fees, are set and imposed by Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) on merchants who accept their debit and credit cards. These fees generate revenue for banks and other card issuers.
In the United States, a $30 billion antitrust settlement between the two card companies and U.S. merchants to cap credit card swipe fees was thrown out by a federal judge last month.