australian watchdog sues allegedly misusing card

“Reducing costs for businesses enables them to offer better prices to their customers,” said Cass-Gottlieb. The ACCC is now seeking declarations, penalties, costs and other orders. “We are concerned that Mastercard’s alleged conduct means that businesses may not be able to fully benefit from the increased competition that was intended to flow through the low-cost routing initiative.” had to be cast,” said ACCC President Gina Cass-Gottlieb. “We allege that MasterCard had sufficient power in the market to supply credit card acceptance services, and a significant purpose of MasterCard’s conduct is to hinder the competitive process by preventing businesses from using Fptos to process debit transactions. MasterCard-AftPOS debit card transactions were made through the MasterCard network, rather than the EftPOS network, even though EftPOS was often the lowest-cost provider. So credit cards offer cheaper interchange rates for processing payments. The ACCC alleges that in response to the low-cost routing initiative, Mastercard entered into agreements with more than 20 major retailers, including supermarkets, fast food chains and clothing retailers, if they agreed to the process. The low-cost routing initiative aims to give merchants the ability to choose which debit card network processes their contactless dual-network debit card payment – whether it is MasterCard, Visa or Eftpos – and aims to supply It was intended to increase competition in debit card acceptance services, while reducing the payment costs associated with processing debit card payments for businesses.įor dual-network debit card payments, the fees paid by a merchant may vary depending on the debit card network used to process the transaction. The consumer watchdog alleges that between November 2017 and at least November 2020, Mastercard had “substantial power” in the market to supply credit card acceptance services under the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) low-cost routing initiative. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has opened legal proceedings in Federal Court against MasterCard Asia Pacific and MasterCard Australia for alleged anti-competitive conduct that significantly reduced competition in the supply of debit card acceptance services.

Australian watchdog sues allegedly misusing card