4 ms·

More detail here: https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-interchange-fees-for-uk-customers-in-post-brexit-move-12247818 https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike

More detail here: https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-interchange-fees-for-uk-customers-in-post-brexit-move-12247818 https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-interchange-fees-for... But a curious note from that article: "The move to increase interchange fees will bring it into line with MasterCard, its rival payments group, which announced a similar move in January." So why is Amazon restricting customers with Visa and not MasterCard? Can't be the UK-EU Post-Brexit policy alone.

rtpg 5y ago
Maybe Mastercard made a deal with Amazon and Visa isn’t budging
- rexreed 5y ago
  THIS is probably the answer, everything else is just ... convenient.
- brummm 5y ago
  The definitely get better interchange rates from Mastercard for the exclusivity.
ComputerGuru 5y ago
The Amazon branded credit card is a MasterCard in the UK. So Visa raises its rates to match MC, but AMZ has a special relationship with the latter.
- simfree 5y ago
  Note that this special relationship only likely applies to transactions that use the Amazon MasterCard on Amazon.com, and MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full rates. Costco ran into this with American Express, though in retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more non-Costco Visa cards in circulation).
  - diebeforei485 5y ago
    > MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full rates. Not at all. These exclusive acceptance deals do usually have lower-than-otherwise rates for all cards from that issuer, though perhaps not as low as the co-branded card. Think about it - if Costco had the same fees from a normal (not co-branded) Visa card as they did from a normal MasterCard, what incentive do they have to disallow normal MasterCards but still allow normal Visa cards?
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    > only likely applies I just want to stress that we both can only speculate.
  - Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
    > Costco ran into this with American Express, though in retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more non-Costco Visa cards in circulation). Could you expand on it a worse move for Costco? I thought it was great they moved to Visa because majority of Americans does not have Amex for credit card. The only way we can use our Visa card is through debit card only. So by moving to Visa (they have largest cardholders than Amex/Discover in America), Costco gained more consumers so the consumers can use their Visa credit card without resorting to debit card. It helps me a lot because I don't and never have Amex. Amex don't have a lot of retailers coverage (they used to be popular back in the 80s/90s), same for Discover. I recalled Amex have higher transaction fees, I believe higher than Discover, and Amex explicitly disallow passing the fee to the consumers. So made sense retailers prefer Visa/MC because they have lower transaction fees. This is what I remember back in the day when Costco made this announcement.
    - ac29 5y ago
      Its bad for Costco because they pay higher fees on credit cards than debit cards or cash. Having an expanded pool of people using credit cards is good for the credit card holders, but not Costco. If Costco wanted more credit card users, there's no reason they couldnt take every credit major credit card.
    - 5y ago
- fragmede 5y ago
  special, UK-based relationship, sounds like, which then is still neatly explained as a consequence to brexit - Amazon UK Visa = expensive EU charge, Amazon UK MC = UK charge.

rtpg 5y ago

Maybe Mastercard made a deal with Amazon and Visa isn’t budging

rexreed 5y ago
THIS is probably the answer, everything else is just ... convenient.
brummm 5y ago
The definitely get better interchange rates from Mastercard for the exclusivity.

ComputerGuru 5y ago

The Amazon branded credit card is a MasterCard in the UK. So Visa raises its rates to match MC, but AMZ has a special relationship with the latter.

simfree 5y ago
Note that this special relationship only likely applies to transactions that use the Amazon MasterCard on Amazon.com, and MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full rates. Costco ran into this with American Express, though in retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more non-Costco Visa cards in circulation).
- diebeforei485 5y ago
  > MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full rates. Not at all. These exclusive acceptance deals do usually have lower-than-otherwise rates for all cards from that issuer, though perhaps not as low as the co-branded card. Think about it - if Costco had the same fees from a normal (not co-branded) Visa card as they did from a normal MasterCard, what incentive do they have to disallow normal MasterCards but still allow normal Visa cards?
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  > only likely applies I just want to stress that we both can only speculate.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  > Costco ran into this with American Express, though in retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more non-Costco Visa cards in circulation). Could you expand on it a worse move for Costco? I thought it was great they moved to Visa because majority of Americans does not have Amex for credit card. The only way we can use our Visa card is through debit card only. So by moving to Visa (they have largest cardholders than Amex/Discover in America), Costco gained more consumers so the consumers can use their Visa credit card without resorting to debit card. It helps me a lot because I don't and never have Amex. Amex don't have a lot of retailers coverage (they used to be popular back in the 80s/90s), same for Discover. I recalled Amex have higher transaction fees, I believe higher than Discover, and Amex explicitly disallow passing the fee to the consumers. So made sense retailers prefer Visa/MC because they have lower transaction fees. This is what I remember back in the day when Costco made this announcement.
  - ac29 5y ago
    Its bad for Costco because they pay higher fees on credit cards than debit cards or cash. Having an expanded pool of people using credit cards is good for the credit card holders, but not Costco. If Costco wanted more credit card users, there's no reason they couldnt take every credit major credit card.
  - 5y ago
fragmede 5y ago
special, UK-based relationship, sounds like, which then is still neatly explained as a consequence to brexit - Amazon UK Visa = expensive EU charge, Amazon UK MC = UK charge.