Amazon to stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards

Amazon has told customers that it plans to stop accepting payments made with UK-issued Visa credit cards in January.

Interchange fees are typically a percentage of the cost of the transaction and are higher for credit card transactions, and for those where purchases are made remotely, including online sales, although there are caps on payments made within the UK.

Many shoppers choose to use credit cards for large purchases online because of the extra protections that are offered if things go wrong.

Under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, if a retailer goes out of business or fails to deliver goods as promised and the items cost more than ?100, the credit card provider has an obligation to refund the costs.

James Andrews, from the comparison website money.co.uk, said the decision would come as a blow to the millions of UK shoppers who had Visa credit cards, including customers of Barclaycard and HSBC.

The British Retail Consortium said companies faced an estimated ?150m increase in the cost of accepting cross-border card payments, with British retailers shouldering an extra ?36.5m in fees, equivalent to ?100,000 every day.

The Federation of Small Businesses said its members had experienced soaring fees in recent years.