LONDON (Reuters) – There is no effective competition in the core credit card services industry, where Visa (NYSE:) and Mastercard (NYSE:) are the biggest players, and greater transparency for users is needed, the U.K. payments regulator said in an interim report. Tuesday.
“The PSR found that over the past five years, taking volume changes into account, Mastercard and Visa have increased their schemes and processing fees by more than 30% in real terms. There is little evidence that service quality has improved by the same amount,” PSR said in a statement.
PSR said it proposed “remedies” for the public consultation, which include increased transparency for users and obligations for Mastercard and Visa to explain, consult and/or document the reasons for price changes.
The statement said it also proposed to provide more detailed financial information to PSR on an ongoing basis to improve its oversight of Mastercard and Visa’s UK operations in the future.