For all you Amazon shopaholics with Visa (V) cards, bad news. Don’t be too keen on making that next Amazon (AMZN) purchase, because the way things are looking between the two companies your payment might just get rejected! Mastercard (MA), you’re safe… for now.
The e-commerce company announced that it’ll stop accepting Visa credit card payments issued in the UK for transactions occurring on its site from January 19th, 2022 onwards. The drastic decision comes in the midst of a battle of fees between Amazon and Visa. Visa’s bank fees for transactions between the UK and the EU were capped at 0.3% before due to EU law. But with Brexit being a thing and all, Visa became a bit cheeky and hiked it up to 1.5%.
Why it matters
Although the fees hike was carried out by other payment providers as well (like Mastercard), Visa’s increase singles out e-commerce purchases while the other cards’ hikes were across the board. Visa shares dropped by 5.7% yesterday at market close, as blowback from the news.