Last November, Amazon announced that Visa credit cards would no longer be accepted on its UK site from January. However, in the face of Visa's refusal to lower its fees, the American online retail giant has now changed its mind, and no longer refuses to accept Visa cards. Read on.
Amazon and Visa clash over high transaction fees
For several months now, the issue of Visa's transaction fees has been at the heart of a clash between the two American giants, the online retailer and the payment processor.
Amazon had decided to stop accepting Visa credit card payments from its UK customers, due to a sharp increase in fees. Indeed, with the Brexit, payment players based in the UK are no longer obliged to abide by the European Union's framework agreements, which provided a framework for transaction fees applied to cross-border payments.
As a result, many payment players have taken advantage of the situation to boost their fees, such as Visa, whose transaction fees have risen from 0.3% to 1.5%.
Amazon's ultimatum won't get Visa to budge
Faced with Visa's refusal to lower its fees, Amazon took a radical decision last November: from January 19, 2022, the e-commerce giant's British customers would no longer be able to pay for their purchases using their Visa credit card.
However, Amazon did an about-face, announcing on January 17, two days before the ultimatum it had set, that Visa credit cards issued in the UK could still be used on its site.
Amazon's maneuver, aimed at pushing Visa into a corner, clearly didn't work. If the giants Visa and Mastercard are seeing their hegemony challenged, whether by fintechs or by EPI, the pan-European payment system project, it is clear that it is very difficult for the various economic players to do without their services.
" We are working closely with Visa on a possible solution that will allow customers to continue to use their Visa credit cards on Amazon.co. uk," announced the American e-commerce giant, who doesn't seem to be giving up on getting things moving.