Dive Brief:Visa and Mastercard are gearing up to increase the fees merchants pay when consumers use the companies’ credit cards, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Those card networks are the two biggest players in the arena. That act, if passed, would attempt to increase competition in the industry by requiring that competing networks, other than Visa and Mastercard, be made available to merchants for processing credit card payments. The card networks argue that the fees pay for their cybersecurity and fraud advances that protect consumers. More recently, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) took the card networks to task during the COVID-19 pandemic when they moved to increase fees after temporarily pausing the hikes.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 31, 2023 02:23 UTC