If applied in a bitcoin context this could be a reason for increasing bitcoin adoption among retailers
A decision on the Competition Bureau’s case against the Canadian arms of credit card giants Visa Inc. V +0.68% and MasterCard Inc. MA +1.56% is due Tuesday, and it could mean changes at the till for Canadians.
The decision comes more than two years after the Competition Bureau accused Visa and MasterCard of restrictive and anti-competitive practices that it said were costing merchants in Canada about 5 billion Canadian dollars ($4.8 billion) a year in “hidden credit card fees.”
MasterCard Canada has said that the Competition Bureau’s legal claims are without merit. It said the changes suggested by the watchdog group would enrich merchants at the expense of customers. Visa Canada said the bureau had taken an “anti-consumer position,” and said it would vigorously defend its policies.
The two credit-card giants require merchants to accept all Visa and MasterCard credit cards, even premium ones that carry higher fees for merchants, and they forbid the use of any surcharges for customers paying with plastic, the bureau said.
The bureau has said that card acceptance fees charged to merchants in Canada are among the highest in the world. Merchants that accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards charged between 1.5% and 3% on each purchase.
Visa and MasterCard have the two largest credit-card networks in Canada, processing more than 92% of all consumer transactions in 2011, or more than C$322 billion.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/07/22/business-credit-card-fee.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2013/07/22/deadline-looms-for-big-visa-mastercard-decision-in-canada/