MasterCard Fined $648 Million for High EU Card Fees (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday January 22, 2019 @07:40AM from the functional-regulator dept.

MasterCard was fined 570.6 million euros ($648 million) by the European Union for imposing rules that regulators said may have artificially raised the costs of card payments in the region. From a report: The European Commission said MasterCard unfairly prevented retailers from seeking cheaper rates from banks outside the EU country where they are based. MasterCard's curbs on cross-border acquiring ended when the EU introduced credit card legislation in 2015. The EU's probe started in 2013 and escalated with a statement of objections two years later. MasterCard last month set aside $650 million to cover the fine, less than a potential 1 billion euros it flagged as a possibility in 2017. The company got a 10 percent fine reduction for cooperating with the EU, regulators said.

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No free market by fred6666 · 2019-01-22 08:03 · Score: 5, Informative

The credit card market is an oligopoly and therefore must be regulated. The EU is right to force Mastercard into lowering its fees.
Re: Ok but by cyber-vandal · 2019-01-22 08:09 · Score: 4, Informative

Yes mate that's it. The European Regional Development Fund doesn't exist and the poor widdle UK is being oppressed by those nasty foreigners.