Summary
Research at Bangor University has significant regulatory change in interchange and merchant fees of payment cards in the European Union (EU) between 2013 and 2016. Acceptance of card payment platforms by both cardholders and merchants was essential for increasing the use of electronic payments in the EU to integrate payment systems for EU countries. By demonstrating that lowering interchange and merchant discount fees would be beneficial to all parties and by providing evidence critical to EU decision-making concerned with regulatory changes, Carbo-Valverde’s research led to reduced fees from June 2015. These changes benefitted all merchants that use electronic payments, and all cardholders and financial institutions across Europe, with annual savings between 2015 and 2017 of EUR1,200,000,000 (03-2020) for EU merchants and EUR587,000,000 (03-2020) for EU consumers.The findings are also directly benefitting other, non-EU jurisdictions.
Researchers
- Santiago Carbo-Valverde