Ten years after the EU capped interchange, the scheme fees Visa and Mastercard charge for access to their networks are still uncapped, and they are now the target of a European Commission antitrust investigation that keeps widening. After questioning merchants and payment service providers, the Commission sent a detailed questionnaire to terminal makers and payment companies in May 2025. The fees have stayed in regulation’s blind spot even as they soared.
Scheme fees sit on top of interchange
Every card payment carries two separate charges. The interchange fee is paid by the merchant’s bank (the acquirer) to the cardholder’s bank (the issuer). The scheme fee is collected directly by the network, Visa or Mastercard, from both banks for access to and use of its infrastructure: authorization, clearing, settlement, and licensing, plus a long tail of ancillary charges.
- Access and processing fees: charged per transaction authorized, cleared, and settled on the network.
- License and connectivity fees: for use of the brand, BINs, and the scheme’s APIs.
- Market Development Funds: contributions earmarked for “developing” the network.
- Behavioral or compliance fees: penalties tied to the scheme’s rules on fraud rates, chargebacks, and message formats.
- Cross-border and currency conversion fees: applied whenever the issuer and the acquirer are in different countries.
EuroCommerce, the European retail trade association, counts more than 800 separate scheme fees. The pricing is so complex that acquirers themselves struggle to explain how the fees are calculated to merchants, who pass them on without always understanding them.
The 2015 interchange caps left scheme fees untouched
The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) of 2015 capped interchange at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards across the European Economic Area. Merchants counted it as a win worth billions of euros in savings. But the regulation left scheme fees entirely unregulated. The networks pulled the one pricing lever that had no cap and raised their scheme fees, absorbing a good share of the expected savings.
| Feature | Interchange fee | Scheme fee |
|---|---|---|
| Paid to | Issuing bank (the cardholder’s bank) | The network (Visa or Mastercard) |
| Capped in the EU? | Yes (0.2% debit, 0.3% credit) | No |
| Transparency | Regulated under the IFR | Low; widely seen as opaque |
| Recent trend | Flat (capped) | +34% in four years |
| Negotiable by the merchant | No | No; set by the network |
Brussels is testing whether the networks abuse a dominant position
The Commission began examining the two networks in September 2024, after complaints from merchants and fintechs, and the probe became public that November. It is trying to establish whether Visa and Mastercard hold a dominant position and abuse it. Its latest questionnaire asks for details of the fees and services the networks charged between 2017 and 2024. Retailers’ central argument rests on a 2024 report by The Brattle Group, which found that network prices climbed with no measurable improvement in service for merchants or consumers.
UK regulators and EU lawmakers add pressure
The antitrust case is not the only front. In the UK, the Payment Systems Regulator flagged the same lack of transparency as early as May 2024 and weighed remedies, potentially including caps. In the EU, the coming Payment Services Regulation (PSR), which accompanies PSD3, is set to impose transparency and reporting obligations on scheme fees. Together, competition enforcement and regulation put the networks under more pressure than at any time since the IFR.
Merchants and PSPs should start with their statements
- Merchants: check the scheme fee line on acquiring statements, which is often buried in the blended rate (the merchant service charge).
- Acquirers and PSPs: prepare for itemized reporting (interchange, scheme fees, acquirer margin) that the PSR will likely make mandatory.
- Alternatives: account-to-account payments, Wero, and free instant credit transfers gain appeal every time card costs rise.
- Visa and Mastercard: significant legal exposure, and above all the threat of structural rules on their main source of growth in Europe.