Mastercard is fined $650 million by the EU for artificially raising costs of card payments

The European Union (EU) fined Mastercard €570.6M ($649M) on Tuesday for artificially raising the costs of card payments and therefore breaching the EU antitrust rules. The official statement said that Mastercard prevented merchants from shopping around for better conditions offered by banks in other countries of the EU, which caused an increase in costs and harmed consumers and retailers.

The European Commission concluded that Mastercard's rules restricted competition between banks cross border, in breach of EU antitrust rules. Since Mastercard cooperated with the European Commission by acknowledging the infringements of EU competition rules, the Commission has granted Mastercard a 10% fine reduction.