EU court: MasterCard cross-border fees were anti-competitive
The European Court of Justice has rejected a MasterCard appeal and upheld the ruling that its fees were anti-competitive.
The court said regulators were right to condemn the cost of its interchange fees – the fees retailers pay banks to process card payments – and has rejected an appeal.
MasterCard was investigated last year for the amount it charged for card transactions in Europe.
The company’s president said the ruling was “disappointing”.
![The European Court of Justice has rejected a MasterCard appeal and upheld the ruling that its fees were anti-competitive](http://www.bellenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The-European-Court-of-Justice-has-rejected-a-MasterCard-appeal-and-upheld-the-ruling-that-its-fees-were-anti-competitive.jpg)
The European Court of Justice has rejected a MasterCard appeal and upheld the ruling that its fees were anti-competitive (photo Reuters)
Javier Perez, president of MasterCard Europe said despite that, the ruling would have “little or no impact on how MasterCard operates”.
He said: “We will continue to comply with the decision as we have been doing for a number of years. This means we would maintain our European… cross-border consumer interchange fees at a weighted average of 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit.”
MasterCard is the second-largest credit and debit card company after Visa.
The decision ends MasterCard’s seven-year battle against a decision made by the EU’s competition watchdog.
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