Mastercard is facing a $650m ( €570m ) penalty for breaching EU antitrust rules on cross-border payments. By preventing merchants from shopping around for better conditions offered by banks in other Member States, Mastercard's rules artificially raised the costs of card payments, harming consumers and retailers in the EU.” An investigation by Mastercard concluded that due to EU ’s rules requiring banks to apply the interchange fees of the retailer’s country of location, retailers were unable to benefit from lower fees offered by a bank in another Mastercard member state, thus restricting competition and hiking the cost of card payments.
Mastercard is facing a $650m ( €570m ) penalty for breaching EU antitrust rules on cross-border payments. An investigation by Mastercard concluded that due to EU ’s rules requiring banks to apply the interchange fees of the retailer’s country of location, retailers were unable to benefit from lower fees offered by a bank in another Mastercard member state, thus restricting competition and hiking the cost of card payments.