![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/9895.jpg\")
Reuters<\/p>\n\n By<\/b>
\n
Reuters\n <\/p>\n
\n Published<\/b>
\n <\/p>\n
May 24, 2025<\/p>\n
\n EU antitrust regulators have widened their investigation into Visa and Mastercard’s fees as they seek feedback from terminal providers and payments companies that could lead to charges of anti-competitive practices, according to a European Commission document seen by Reuters.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n
A new questionnaire was sent after a similar one was distributed to retailers and merchants last month. The EU competition enforcer’s scrutiny started in September as a result of complaints from merchants and payments companies about Visa and Mastercard’s fees.<\/p>\n
The two companies, which charge scheme fees for services related to participation in their card system, process about two-thirds of card payments in the euro zone.<\/p>\n
The latest questionnaire asked about the number of fees or services charged by the two companies between 2017-2024, the number of new fees or services introduced, and the number of changes.<\/p>\n
Regulators also wanted to know which scheme and processing services are mandatory, and how Visa and Mastercard inform payments companies about new fees or changes to existing fees.<\/p>\n
The questionnaire asked if information provided by the two companies is sufficiently clear and if they give sufficient notice about changes to fees and services.<\/p>\n
Respondents are also asked whether they have complained to Visa and Mastercard in the last seven years and how long it has taken to process the grievances.<\/p>\n
“Mastercard offers consumers and businesses choice, ways to pay and be paid that are hassle-free and worry-free, secure and most convenient for them,” a Mastercard spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Visa, meanwhile, said its fees reflected the value it provides to financial institutions, merchants and consumers in Europe. “This includes extremely high levels of security and fraud prevention, near-perfect operational resilience and reliability.”<\/p>\n
The questionnaire focuses on the degree to which the schemes must be accepted by all payment service providers and how they have raised fees in recent years, said a person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
“This shift suggests that the Commission may be exploring ways to establish that Visa and Mastercard hold a dominant market position and are potentially abusing that dominance,” the person said.<\/p>\n
The Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deadline for replies is June 2. Bloomberg first reported on the questionnaire.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2025 All rights reserved.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Reuters Published May 24, 2025 EU antitrust regulators have widened their investigation into Visa and Mastercard’s fees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3091],"tags":[952,51,2584,15909,2441,5775,15910,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-129591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-beauty","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-fashion","11":"tag-luxury","12":"tag-markets","13":"tag-network","14":"tag-professionals","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114566242601270115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}