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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Hilary Osborne

Mastercard fined £31.5m over illegal UK prepaid cards cartel

Mastercard cards.
Local authorities may have paid higher fees than they would have done in a competitive market. Photograph: Roberto Machado Noa/Rex/Shutterstock

Five payment companies including Mastercard have been fined a total of more than £33m for operating illegal cartels when providing prepaid cards for local authorities to distribute to vulnerable people.

The companies were found by the Payment Systems Regulator to have broken competition law by agreeing not to compete with each other for the authorities’ custom.

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