Visa and MasterCard agreed to lower the average credit card interchange fee below 1%
The government has announced new details of an agreement with Visa and MasterCard that will see them lower the amount that they charge retailers when a customer pays for a purchase with a credit card.
Known as so-called interchange fees, they have long irritated merchants by allowing the credit card company to keep a percentage of each sale, instead of a flat fee for each transaction.
On Thursday, the government announced a deal with the two card companies that will reduce interchange fees for in-store transactions to 0.95 per cent, on average.
That means on a $100 purchase, if a…
