Plans to cut cost of credit card use

Plans to cut the cost of credit card use will be unveiled by the European Commission next week, despite wide-scale lobbying by VisaEurope, MasterCard and Groupement Cartes Bancaires.

Consumers, whether they pay with cash or a card, are paying about €2 in every €100 because of credit card fees while retailers are paying about €14bn a year in card costs.

The companies and their relationship with banks has been described as a cartel by the Commission and the European Court has agreed, leading to the action that is expected to see costs capped at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit card transactions.