Amazon will no longer accept UK-issued Visa credit cards from January 19th. These are the high fees charged by the payment company. Visa has already responded by saying this is a “bad” decision and hopes the fight against the seller can be resolved.
Visa’s CEO has already called Amazon’s decision “strange” and “unfortunate,” but said he hoped the “problem” could be resolved.
“It is clear that we have a difficult negotiation,” Al Kelly told the Financial Times. “The difference is that Amazon unfortunately chose to make the complex negotiations public and, oddly enough, chose a threat to punish consumers,” he said.
Amazon announced the decision last week and offered affected customers a £ 20 loan to use for another payment method.
An Amazon spokesman explained during the public announcement that the cost of paying for cards is preventing customers from getting better prices and that these amounts should not remain high or increase even as technology advances.
There is no doubt that according to the payment company Bambora, which the FT refers to, in the UK Mastercard and Visa charge very similar fees for payments.
“I find it rather odd that they claim to have done this because of the high transaction costs in the UK,” said Al Kelly. And I came to the conclusion: “Absolutely wrong.”
Visa and Mastercad announced a rate hike applied to payments on transactions between the UK and the EU after Brexit was formalized.
