Payments Dive
E-commerce juggernaut Amazon is upping the ante in its battle against card giant Visa, informing United Kingdom merchants that it won’t accept U.K.-issued Visa credit cards for transactions.
The move escalates an Amazon campaign to drive down the interchange fees it pays to Visa when customers use Visa’s credit cards to make purchases. The Seattle retailer has been waging the battle mainly by imposing surcharges on Visa purchases in some markets. Amazon argues that the card fees hurt retail businesses and result in higher prices for consumers.
“These costs should be going down over time with technological advancements, but instead they continue to stay high or even rise,” an Amazon spokesperson said by email. “As a result of Visa’s continued high cost of payments, we regret that Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept UK-issued Visa credit cards as of 19 January, 2022.”
