ACCC alleges Mastercard misused market power
The ACCC has initiated Federal Court proceedings against Mastercard for ‘allegedly engaging in conduct with the purpose of substantially lessening competition in the supply of debit card acceptance services.’
The ACCC claims that in response to the RBA’s least cost routing initiative Mastercard entered into agreements with major retailers, giving them discounted rates for Masercard credit transactions on the proviso that the 'committed to processing all or most of their Mastercard-efpos debit card transactions through Mastercard rather than the eftpos network’, even though eftpos was often the cheapest option.
ACCC Chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said;
‘We allege that Mastercard had substantial power in the market for the supply of credit card acceptance services, and that a substantial purpose of Mastercard’s conduct was to hinder the competitive process by deterring businesses from using eftpos for processing debit transactions’
See press release for further details.
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