Europe’s payment users call for transparent card fees

The European Payment Users Alliance represents businesses and consumers across Europe. Our message for Europe’s politicians: we need an interchange fee regulation, which is transparent and harmonised across Europe.

The multilateral interchange fee (MIF) costs retailers and consumers €9 billion per year, costs which fall on all consumers, whether they pay by card or not. The MIF system has been condemned as anti-competitive by the highest European Court. Europe’s payment users badly need the proposed Interchange Fee Regulation to rectify this.

The card schemes and banks would have us believe that lower card fees would cost consumers money – this is not so. On the contrary, healthier competition is badly needed in the retail payments market to promote innovation, improve customer service and ensure flexibility. The business sectors in the Payment Users' Alliance are highly competitive, guaranteeing that cost savings will be passed on to their customers.

However, the creation of a fairer, more transparent interchange fee framework for European merchants and consumers is under serious threat by new proposals, which would significantly weaken the aims of the draft regulation.