By Huw Jones
LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Britain's payments watchdog
proposed reforms on Wednesday to increase competition in card
services for retailers after cashless transactions increased
sharply during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said its remedies, put
out for public consultation https://www.psr.org.uk/media/yw2lz1c3/psr-cp22-1-camr-remedies-consultation-jan-2022.pdf
until April, tackle the lack of transparency in fees charged to
retailers to companies who handle their card payments as well as
address indefinite contracts for such services and contracts
that discourage switching providers.
Lawmakers want more competition in card payments given that
fees charged to retailers are passed on to consumers, but the
PSR said it was not currently considering any direct
intervention on pricing structures.
Card "acquiring" services from Barclaycard, Elavon, Lloyds
Bank Cardnet, Global Payments and Worldpay -- the five largest
-- enable shops to accept card payments from customers buying
goods and services.
In return, the acquirers pay fees to Mastercard and Visa,
who operate the international card payment systems that account
for a high proportion of transactions.
The PSR said it proposes that the acquirers give retailers
standardised key price information and send messages to
retailers when an initial contract is due to expire, followed by
annual messages to trigger consideration of alternative
acquirers.
A further remedy would ensure that retailers are not
prevented or discouraged by acquirers from searching and
switching between services, the PSR said.
"We invite industry to develop detailed proposed
specifications for the remedies we describe and for any other
measures they wish to propose," the PSR said in its consultation
paper.
Final remedies will be published later this year.
There are around 157 million cards in issue in Britain, and
consumers made 15.5 billion debit card payments in 2020.
(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Porter)
Barclays (BARC)
Lloyds (LLOY)
