Credit Card Fees Going Up; Online Retailers Bearing The Brunt

Fee increases for Visa and Mastercard are scheduled to start in October 2023 and April 2024

The Wall Street Journal reports many of the increases are for online purchases.

The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502-million dollars annually in fees to the credit card companies.

Increases in network fees will make up a little more than half of that revenue, the rest will come from increases in interchange fees, also called swipe fees.

Visa, Mastercard and the big banks have said the fees help cover costs related to fraud prevention and innovation, while banks often use the money from interchange fees to fund credit-card rewards programs.

Retailers usually absorb those fees, though some do opt to pass it along to customers.

A person with a wallet, taking out a credit card.

Photo by Alpha Media USA Portland OR