Earlier this week, Amazon announced that it would stop accepting Visa credit cards issued in the U.K. due to high interchange fees on transactions. The company gave a deadline of January 19 and is offering consumers who primarily use Visa cards £20 off a purchase as an incentive to update their preferred payment method.
The move followed similar efforts by Amazon to curtail the use of Visa-issued credit cards in Singapore and Australia, markets where the e-commerce giant introduced a 0.5% surcharge on transactions made with those cards. In both cases, Amazon also offered customers gift cards to encourage them to switch payment methods.
While Amazon is asserting its market dominance in an effort to lower transaction fees — which a company spokesperson said “[continue] to be an obstacle for businesses striving to provide the best prices for customers” — it is hardly alone in its desire to ween customers off high-cost payment methods.
For merchants, the introduction …