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Mastercard Inc., the New York City-headquartered American multinational financial services and credit card provider, had decided against its previous plan to hike charges for interchange fee at least until April next year, the online payment processing giant said in an emailed statement late on Tuesday. In factuality, interchange fee could be referred to a charge that merchants have to pay off to card-issuing banks every time a consumer swipes their cards. As a matter of fact, latest move from Mastercard to delay a slated fee hike came against the backdrop of a boom in e-commerce and online shopping due to a stiffer pandemic-led restriction in many parts of the world.
Mastercard to delay fee hike
On top of that, the New York City-based payment processor’s recent move to pull back from a planned hike in interchange fees came forth days after the Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, alongside a Vermont Representative Peter Welch, wrote a letter to Visa and Mastercard Chief Executives asking them to peter out any plans to raise fees as the country had still been reeling from the pandemic’s fiscal consequences.
Nonetheless, latest Mastercard decision had reaffirmed a Bloomberg news report published earlier in the day that said both Visa and Mastercard had cancelled their plans to hike card charges at least until April 2022. Meanwhile, referring to a still-inflaming pandemic’s fiscal fallouts that wreaked havocs on a number of G20 economies while catalysing a near-stagnation in international trading, Mastercard said in a statement, “Mindful that some merchants are still facing unprecedented circumstances...we are delaying our previously announced interchange adjustments in the U.S. until April 2022”.
