MIL-OSI Europe: Answer to a written question – Alarming increase in commissions charged by international payment card networks – E-000812/2025(ASW)

The Commission has recently conducted in-depth market surveys in relation to electronic payments. A 2020 Report[1] on the application of the Interchange Fees Regulation 2015/751 examined developments in card fees.

Supported by a comprehensive Study[2], it found that interchange fees declined and that ‘Scheme fees, which are not within the scope of the IFR, appear to have increased to a limited extent’. A follow-up Study in 2024 largely aligns with the previous Study on fees aspects[3].

For more than 20 years, the Commission has focused antitrust enforcement actions on interchange fees, which resulted in several decisions addressed to Visa and MasterCard[4], upheld by the European Courts[5], leading to significant reduction in those fees.

The Commission is continuously monitoring the payments market and actively investigating when relevant.

• [1] Report on the application of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions, Commission Staff Working Document of 29.6.2020 SWD(2020) 118. https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/document/download/d8055968-b4c2-424b-b281-c4c6959df19b_en?filename=IFR_report_card_payment.pdf
• [2] Study on the application of Interchange Fee Regulation, 2020, prepared by Ernst&Young and Copenhagen Economics, available at https://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/reports/kd0120161enn.pdf
• [3] https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/document/65d4f65a-6b23-49c7-91cb-e5cd166a19ed_en
• [4] https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/financial-services/cases_en;
  https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/AT.34579;
  https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/AT.39398;
  https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/AT.40049
• [5] MasterCard judgments, Case C-382/12 (2014) and case T-111/08 (2012).