PSR Recommends Payment Fee Cut

In addition to the British Retail Consortium providing detailed information on the cost of payments in the UK, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has recommended a cap on cross-border interchange fees, following its market review of the fees.

The fact that the Canadian government has recently come to an agreement with Visa and Mastercard to lower their interchange fees shows it can be done. From Autumn 2024, small businesses and non-profit organisations with less than $300,000 in Visa sales and less than $175,000 in Mastercard sales will qualify for fee cuts of up to 27%.

This recommendation by the PSR has been driven by the increase in fees imposed by Visa and Mastercard on the UK when it left the European Union (EU). It wants to lower the cost of accessing the EU market for UK merchants, since interchange fees can be one of the largest costs for merchants when accepting credit or debit cards.