Cross-border interchange fee

Payments - cards - charges.

Interchange fees or charges relate to credit cards, debit cards, and other cards.

Cross-border interchange fees are interchange fees levied when a card issuer is in a different jurisdiction from the point of sale or the merchant's acquirer.

Fees increased fivefold following UK's departure from EU

"We’re carrying out two market reviews to understand whether card payments are working well, and to make sure that businesses, and ultimately consumers, get a good deal...

Cross-border interchange fees: Mastercard and Visa charge these fees for consumer card transactions where the card issuer is based in either the UK or the EEA, and the merchant’s acquirer and/or point of sale is in the other location.

In the European Union, these fees are capped by the Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR).

Following the UK’s departure from the EU, these caps no longer applied to UK–EEA cross-border transactions.

Mastercard and Visa then raised the interchange fees fivefold for ‘card not present’ (CNP) remote transactions, such as online sales."

UK Payments Systems Regulator - Annual Plan 2023/24.

See also

• Acquirer
• Brexit
• Cap
• Card not present (CNP)
• Credit
• Credit card
• Debit card
• Emerging Payments Association
• European Economic Area
• European Union
• Interchange fee
• Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR)
• Issuer
• Mastercard
• Merchant
• Pay
• Payment
• Payment Systems Regulator (PSR)
• Payments and payment systems
• Processing fee
• PSOR
• Receipt
• Remittance
• Scheme fee
• Visa

Other resource

• Payment Systems Regulator - Annual Plan 2023/24