Turkey’s Antimonopoly Committee has launched an investigation into Mastercard and Visa payment systems due to suspicions of creating obstacles to cross-border transactions. About this informsDaily Sabah.
Turkey’s Antimonopoly Committee (RK) said that local payment service providers have the ability to serve customers who make payments to foreign merchants in accordance with bilateral agreements with foreign companies.
“According to these bilateral agreements, cross-border payment transactions are localized and can be carried out without paying Mastercard or Visa international transaction fees,” – reported in the department.
Preliminary findings of on-site inspections indicate that Mastercard and Visa may restrict the work of payment service providers who have entered into such agreements, justifying this as a violation of their own internal rules. It is also stated that companies could use sanctions against banks as a pressure tool.
The investigation will investigate whether the companies restricted the access of foreign merchants to their card networks and POS terminals, as well as whether they took steps to push alternative payment solutions out of the market.
We will remind, on July 12, the antimonopoly agency of Turkey initiated an investigation into the Spotify streaming service due to suspicions of unfair competition. Access to the Grok artificial intelligence chatbot is also restricted in Turkey.
