Competition inquiry: Visa Europe continues constructive dialogue with European Commission

Peter Ayliffe, CEO of Visa Europe, participates in public hearing on payment cards

Brussels, July 17, 2006

At today's public hearing on the European Commission's competition inquiry into the payment cards market, Peter Ayliffe, President and CEO of Visa Europe, stressed Visa Europe's commitment to cooperate with regulators and warned against drawing premature conclusions on the basis of the preliminary findings.

Peter Ayliffe said: "Visa Europe and the European Commission share a common vision: creating a truly internal market for payments, making the Single Euro Payments Area a reality and displacing the most costly means of payment, cash and cheques. Our mission is to create secure, innovative and efficient payment products, for the benefit of our member banks, the retail community and, most importantly, European consumers."

Whilst strongly supporting the European Commission's initiatives to enhance cross-border competition and reduce market fragmentation, Visa Europe insists that the findings of the sector inquiry must be based on accurate, up-to-date data and robust, sound economic analysis. Visa Europe is concerned that the preliminary conclusions of the sector enquiry on profitability and interchange in particular do not fulfil these criteria.

Urging the Commission to revisit its analysis, Peter Ayliffe said: "Any regulation must be well thought through, based on reliable data and analysis and applied uniformly throughout Europe. This has not been the case in Europe to date. A big danger we all face is that the historically founded market differences across Europe will be perpetuated by regulatory fragmentation."

On interchange, Peter Ayliffe warned that any further regulation could threaten the SEPA goals, particularly the move to more efficient electronic payments. He concluded that "After a long and thorough review, the European Commission granted an exemption for Visa's interchange in 2002. What everyone really needs now is a definitive, once-and-for-all agreement that the principle of interchange is fundamental to the day-to-day functioning and future development of electronic payments".

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Notes to the editor
Visa Europe is owned and controlled by its 5,000 European member banks. It operates as a non-profit-making membership association. One of Visa Europe's key objectives is to enable its member banks to make the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) a reality. By 1 January 2007, a full year ahead of the deadline set by the European Commission and the European Central Bank, Visa Europe will be fully SEPA-compliant.

The Visa Europe press office only deals with media enquiries relating to the organisation's activities in the region. Journalists should email: europeanmedia@visa.com