Hypermarkets slam banks over fees
Poland's antitrust authority began investigating two credit card companies last week after they were accused by hypermarket chains of monopolizing the market and charging exorbitant fees each time customers purchase goods.
The antitrust authority (UOKiK) is delving into the operations of Visa Forum Polska and Europay (MasterCard) Forum Polska, accusing them of violating regulations and setting up a price cartel.
Iwona Zaczek, a spokeswoman for UOKiK, said the watchdog organization is taking the complaint seriously, though she declined to predict the outcome of the investigation. She said that according to antitrust regulations, which came into force last month, companies are forbidden to misuse their market share by offering their services for abnormally high fees.
Of the 10 million Poles who use credit cards, half of them have Visa, which has contracts with more than 20 banks. Europay has contracts with 21 banks issuing some 4.8 million cards.
"Poland's banks that use Visa and Europay are determining the level of the fee, which is charged by card issuers for every transaction," said Andrzej Maria Falinski, secretary general of Polska Organizacja Handlu i Dystrybucji (POHiD), an organization of the 12 largest hypermarket chains that filed the suit. "As a result of orchestrated fee setting, banks are able to keep interchange rates at a prohibitively high level," he said.
Poland's credit card fees at retail outlets are among the highest in Europe with hypermarkets paying 1.85-2.35% per transaction while smaller shops and restaurants are charged as much as 4-5%. The European average is 0.3-1% per transaction. "We would be ready to negotiate the level of the interchange fee with banks, but they don't want to talk with us," Falinski said.
Wieslaw Federowicz, director of Europay in Warsaw, refused to comment on whether the banks working with the company would consider reducing fees. He also declined to comment on whether all member banks would use the same fee scale or set their own guidelines.
But analysts said it was unlikely that banks would lower their credit card fees when they are netting profits as high as zl. 600 million-zl. 800 million ($150 million-$200 million) each year.
