Türkiye's competition watchdog on Friday announced it had launched an investigation into global card payment giants Mastercard and Visa to determine whether their scheme rules restricted Turkish payment institutions from servicing merchants based abroad.
The Competition Authority (RK) said domestic payment service providers have been able to offer services to consumers wishing to make payments to merchants based abroad through bilateral agreements established with foreign entities.
"Under these bilateral agreements, cross-border payment transactions are localized and can be carried out without being subject to Mastercard or Visa's foreign transaction fees," the board said.
Initial findings from on-site inspections suggest that Mastercard and Visa may be obstructing the operations of payment service providers engaged in such bilateral agreements, claiming these activities violate their self-defined scheme rules, and may be using various methods, such as imposing sanctions on banks, to do so, it noted.
The investigation will examine whether the companies have prevented the use of their card/POS infrastructure by foreign-based merchants and whether they have taken steps to exclude alternative payment solutions from the market, the authority noted.
The board launched a separate investigation in November last year to examine whether Mastercard and Visa’s discount and incentive structures created de facto exclusivity with card-issuing banks in Türkiye, potentially stifling competition from rival networks.
In 2015, Mastercard was fined by for practices related to its card payment systems.
