Amazon has informed consumers that from January 19th, it would no longer accept Visa payment cards in the United Kingdom.
It cited hefty credit card transaction costs as the reason for the change, but stated Visa debit cards would still be accepted.
Visa expressed its dissatisfaction with Amazon’s promise to limit customer choice in the future.
“The expense of taking card payments remains a hurdle for companies aiming to give the best pricing for customers,” Amazon added.
Costs should be decreasing over time due to technological advancements, according to the online retailer, “but instead they continue to stay high or even rise.”
The argument, according to an Amazon spokesman, stems from Visa’s “quite outrageous” pricing increases over a number of years with no added value to its service.
In a statement, Visa said it was “Amazon’s promise to limit customer choice in the future has me extremely upset. Nobody gains when customer choice is constrained.”
It stated it had a “long-standing partnership with Amazon” and was working to rectify the issue so that consumers in the UK could use Visa credit cards.
Amazon will not specify how much Visa costs the business to handle credit card transactions.
Visa also declined to comment, despite the fact that it claims to take less than 0.1 percent of a purchase’s value on average.
Any charge adjustments, according to Amazon and Visa, have nothing to do with Brexit.
Following Brexit, both Visa and its competitor Mastercard increased the so-called interchange charge on cross-border transactions between firms in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The disagreement between Amazon and Visa concerns the fees that Visa charges Amazon for its services in the United Kingdom.
