MasterCard Fined $648 Million for High EU Card Fees (bloomberg.com) 84
MasterCard was fined 570.6 million euros ($648 million) by the European Union for imposing rules that regulators said may have artificially raised the costs of card payments in the region. From a report: The European Commission said MasterCard unfairly prevented retailers from seeking cheaper rates from banks outside the EU country where they are based. MasterCard's curbs on cross-border acquiring ended when the EU introduced credit card legislation in 2015. The EU's probe started in 2013 and escalated with a statement of objections two years later. MasterCard last month set aside $650 million to cover the fine, less than a potential 1 billion euros it flagged as a possibility in 2017. The company got a 10 percent fine reduction for cooperating with the EU, regulators said.
no way (Score:5, Funny)
I can't believe a credit card company would have high card fees. At least that sounds like an EU problem. They never do that kind of stuff in the US.
Ok but (Score:1, Insightful)
Who gets the money?
People got ripped off, yet I have the uncanny feeling the fine will just make our fat and stupid EU politicians even fatter and more stupid. Nothing for the victims obviously.
Re: Ok but (Score:5, Informative)
Yes mate that's it. The European Regional Development Fund doesn't exist and the poor widdle UK is being oppressed by those nasty foreigners.
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What d'ya think you boys over there take him in as yer PM?
Sadly the evidence strongly suggests he'd do a fuck of a lot better than our current one.
Re: Ok but (Score:2)
Oh no big words the horror! They don't do fuck all now stop being a dumbass.
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If Trump had his way the US would leave NATO so it would be an EU army under NATO under EU control.
But it would also lead to NATO not considering US products when harmonizing equipment which would cut into the profits of the military money making machine so if talks about leaving NATO ever became serious then the Republican senators would suddenly be on board with impeaching Trump.
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It is not a bad thing each state should invest in their own infrastructure.
Question is: What the hell do we ACTUALLY need the EU for?
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Because else, tomorrow your 'neighbor' will buy a gun, shoot you dead and take your land. That's why. Especially if he thinks he can gain more than he has to loose. Civilization is a thin veneer, held in check by people paying taxes. At least, that's what the skeptic in me whispers.
The optimist tells me one day we'll reach that federation of planets-like state of civilization science fiction writers dream about. The realist? That one tells me with moderate prosperity for as large a group of people as possib
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You are entirely incorrect. Well done.
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[irony] Sure, as long as "invest" == funnel to their friends and allies, after taking a large cut for themselves. [/irony]
Re: Ok but (Score:1)
One see those posters now and then about what the EU has done but it's usually just about stupid stuff / spending money into some idiotic project.
I saw it recently for some club/"work" project and I've seen it for fiber in a rural area and for like orange juice or something in an ad.
The free market could had chosen to do all that or not depending on what made the most sense.
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Yeah my American hero.
It is quite self descriptive to see what "free market" has done with the Fiber and internet providers in the US indeed. Bad services, over expensive and private monopolies everywhere, really enjoyable.
I'm Swedish.
I wish our government built fiber networks 15 years ago and then let others provide the service. With the direction Sweden is going I assume those in charge also wish they had done it all but then also run and surveil it all too..
Anyway I've got four ways I can hook up my apartment physically:
* Cable (private owned.)
* Telephony (one national network many service providers.)
* Ethernet both directly by Bredbandsbolaget but also through the municipal network with 19 Internet service providers
And th
And the alternative? (Score:2)
So, you'd rather MC just keep the money? Cause that's the alternative. This sounds a lot like you're complaining about a half-solution instead of celebrating a half-solution.
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Re:EU Found a Money Stream (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me they are just closing down an ATM where big corporations leech from the population.
Cooperation (Score:1)
Ten percent penalty reduction for cooperating? Sounds to me like never cooperating is a good gamble. Heck, delay something for four years and inflation will pay you money all by itself.
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I'm glad the EU has measures in place to encourage cooperation without giving away the store. The US frequently settles for pennies on the dollar (on already low fines.) There's no incentive not to commit the bad acts in that case.
Heck, that could be the baseline, and it would be trivial for the EU to add enough interest to the fine to make the four years delay for delay's sake not worth it.
No free market (Score:5, Informative)
The credit card market is an oligopoly and therefore must be regulated. The EU is right to force Mastercard into lowering its fees.
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The EU budget is determined in advance and the collected fees are included in the current year's budget via the so called "correction mechanism". And the ceilings for the budget is laid down 7 years in advance, and it have to pass the commission, the council and the parliament where full consensus of all member states is required.
So, no it does not work like you describe.
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You'd have a point if the fine was arbitrary. But they are being fined because they violated the law. The law says that you can't do anti-competitive things and put high fees. Are you suggesting the law should not be applied?
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It's not about lowering the fees, it's about the rules MasterCard put in place to keep businesses from shopping around. As in they couldn't deal with a bank outside their country who may offer them a lower fee.
The problem is actually regulation (Score:2)
Get rid of those laws (regulations), and the credit card processors would be forced to compete head-to-head on price, driving their fees down.
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The credit card companies got laws passed making it illegal for merchants to pass credit card fees on to customers.
Where is there such a stupid law? Certainly not where I live.
It's the contract between the credit cards companies and the merchants forbidding that. Not the law.
Credit card regulation protect consumers and merchants.
for once, more than Tony's vig (Score:2)
All too often the "business friendly" regulatory stance is "we will punish your sins with a slap on the wrist, but we'll never make you wish you hadn't".
Depending on how much Mastercard pocketed from this initiative while the getting was good, this could actually have tipped into "we almost wish we hadn't" territory.
Most corporate fines usually wind up in the neighbourhood of Tony Soprano's vig: m
Where are the handcuffs? (Score:1)
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They never pay the fees. They keep appealing for years. It can take decades.
That's why I always say if you really want to punish a business, you have to force them to close their doors for some time. A supermarket for example. You can fine them something they will take years to pay (and probably never will), or you can close them for one single day. They can appeal the closure but the judge can drag their feet for a couple of hours. More than enough to hurt them.
Banks never pay (Score:1)
They can try but they never pay.
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ah you see... you have to call the OTHER number... this is your bank, you need to talk to the card ...repeat until you're tired of music on hold.
ah you see... you have to call the OTHER number... this is the card, you need to talk to your bank
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ah, I see... thank you, we'll be getting in touch with them on your behalf
-- the financial ombudsman
ah, I see... thank you, we'll arrange an audit
-- the FCA
And will pass that cost (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
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Why do you think they would have waited until they got a fine to raise prices if they could?
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They could raise prices and they did, by anti-competitive practices.
Which is what they got fined for, isn't it?
Now, presumably, they have to allow competition. Which will make it harder for them to raise prices, and might make them do the opposite.
I don't see the downside here, apart from the compulsory gay marriage and becoming Venezuela which I'm told invariably follow when governments don't let the rich do whatever the fucking hell they want.
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Huh, we're in agreement. I was asking GGP, because he said "now they have to raise prices". Which just reveals an failure to even understand Econ 101.
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Another EU tax (Score:1)
Who are the EU nations spending all this money on?
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Who are the EU nations spending all this money on?
If your question is sincere (but I don't think it is) the answer is mostly development projects to help poorer areas in all member states improve their economies. A miniscule amount of the EU's spending of course also goes to run the bureaucracy which by any standards imaginable is orders of magnitude more efficient than any national bureaucracy the planet has ever seen (are you aware that just the city of London has more bureaucrats than the entire EU?). One of many functions those bureaucrats do when they
Keep this story in mind (Score:2)
Keep this story in mind the next time you hear someone talking about how going " cashless " will be such a wonderful thing.
MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et. al. can set whatever rates and fees they want with little or no oversight / regulation today.
Those fees are then passed onto the consumer.
( They can also cherry-pick what business and merchandise types are allowed through their systems )
When their CEO decides he / she doesn't like:
Adult-Industries ( porn )
Guns
Women's Health Clinics
$pick_your_favorite_contro
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Retailers can choose not to accept them though.
In the UK many retailers and restaurants don't take American Express because the fees are too high. This keeps surprising Americans that visit.
$pick_your_favorite_controversial_topic
Yeah, there are numerous rumours floating around that Mastercard are attempting to exert political power through threats to cut off financial processing capabiltiies. This is very concerning but I've seen no actual evidence yet.
Hopefully it's just shitty internet rumours, because otherwise I'll have to exert a lot of tim
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Does European Commission accept (Score:2)
Credit Cards as payment for fines?
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Credit Cards as payment for fines?
If the EU had a real sense of irony, they'd make them pay via PayPal as many businesses in EU and elsewhere are now encouraging their customers to use in order to cut down on credit card fees (which are charged to the merchant, not the user).