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Chronicle Live
Chronicle Live
National
Catherine Furze

Amazon scraps ban on Visa credit cards at the last minute

Amazon has told customers that the planned ban on Visa credit cards due to take this place will now not happen.

The online giant has emailed customers to tell them the decision to no longer accept the cards - due to come into force on January 19 - has been scrapped.

Instead, Amazon has said it is "working closely with Visa on a potential solution that will enable customers to continue using their Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk ".

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Shoppers were told by Amazon last November that it would stop accepting Visa credit cards, blaming "high fees Visa charges for processing credit card transactions".

But although the two companies are seeking to resolve their dispute, the message stopped short of saying that the situation had been resolved for good, saying: "Should we make any changes related to Visa credit cards, we will give you advance notice."

The U-turn means that customers will have more time to avoid disruption to their account, such as Prime membership being paused or cancelled if it was set up to automatically pay using a Visa credit card.

Some customers had been offered a £20 credit incentive to switch to a new card.

The ban did not affect the use of Visa debit cards and customers could also still use credit cards issued by other payment firms, like Mastercard or Amex.

Visa also released a brief statement, saying: "Amazon customers can continue to use Visa cards on Amazon.co.uk after 19 January while we work closely together to reach an agreement."

Visa hiked its interchange fee for online credit card payments to 1.5% last year - up five times from the previous 0.3% rate.

Visa cards have been ditched by major banks including Santander and First Direct, both of which have switched to Mastercard.

Announcing the ban last year, Amazon said: "As a result of Visa’s continued high cost of payments, we regret that Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept UK-issued Visa credit cards as of January 19, 2022."

Amazon said that fees "should be going down over time with technological advancements, but instead they continue to stay high or even rise.”

However Visa claimed at the time that the decision would limit consumer choice, saying "When consumer choice is limited, nobody wins."

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