Setting a Benchmark?
Introduction EU Context Previous Intervention MasterCard Case Comment Introduction Recently, the European Commission and the Italian Competition Authority have both examined the retail banking sector. In particular, four-party systems – also termed open card payment systems – have been analyzed and a debate is underway about whether the system of interchange fees should be rethought. Open payment systems provide benefits for both consumers and retailers. Customers benefit from easy access to money, in a more convenient form than cash, and their losses are limited if a card is stolen or lost. Moreover, they are normally granted an interest-free period before payment is due. Retailers can operate more effectively by reducing the costs of managing cash and the risk of theft, accounting errors and fraud. However, the commission and the authority have focused on anti-competitive concerns relating to multilateral interchange fees – that is, the transfer payments between two banks when a card
