Merchants call on EU institutions to cap commercial cards interchange: Uncapped fees lead to price discrimination and inflated consumer prices and are costing the EU economy at least € 4bn per year

The 2015 Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) capped interchange fees for consumer cards at 0,2% and 0,3% for debit and credit cards respectively. Commercial cards, sometimes called corporate, business or company cards, were excluded and for those interchange fees remained uncapped ranging between 1,3 and 2,4%, up to 6 times higher than for consumer cards. However, because it is nearly impossible for merchants to identify commercial cards, merchants cannot avoid paying these higher fees that ultimately lead to higher prices for their products and services, adding to inflation.

Therefore the European Merchants Payments Coalition call on EU institutions to cap commercial cards interchange.