Australian Watchdog Sues Mastercard for Allegedly Misusing Card Payment Market Power

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has started legal proceedings in the Federal Court against Mastercard Asia Pacific and Mastercard Australia for alleged anti-competitive conduct that substantially lessened competition in the supply of debit card acceptance services. From a report: The consumer watchdog alleges between November 2017 to at least November 2020 that Mastercard had a 'substantial degree of power' in the market for the supply of credit card acceptance services under the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) least-cost routing initiative. The least-cost routing initiative aimed to give merchants the ability to choose which debit card network processed their contactless dual-network debit card payments -- whether that was Mastercard, Visa, or Eftpos -- and was intended to increase competition in the supply of debit card acceptance services, while reduce payments costs associated with processing debit card payments for businesses.

For dual-network debit card payments, the fees paid by a merchant can vary depending on the debit card network used for processing the transaction. The ACCC alleges that in response the least-cost routing initiative, Mastercard entered into agreements with more than 20 major retailers, including supermarkets, fast food chains, and clothing retailers, to offer cheaper interchange rates for processing credit card payments if they agreed to process Mastercard-Eftpos debit card transactions through the Mastercard network, rather than the Eftpos network, even though Eftpos was often the lowest cost provider.

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