Interchange Fees in Various Countries: Commentary on Weiner and Wright

Stuart Weiner and Julian Wright should be commended for the efforts they have made to assemble comparative information about interchange fees, no-surcharge rules, and related practices and regulatory issues from various countries. It is clear from their work that much remains hidden from view about interchange fees and vertical restrictions in payments networks. They are, in fact, able to report on interchange fee trends in only a relative handful of countries—and many of those have experienced active regulatory or other legal investigations or interventions concerning interchange fees. In addition to offering useful descriptive data and information about interchange fees and related issues in various countries, Weiner and Wright attempt a positive analysis of interchange fees; that is, they attempt to analyze possible reasons why interchange fees tend to be set at particular levels. They concede their relative lack of success in this effort, concluding only that “interchange fees will be determined by multiple factors.” My paper will focus on this interesting attempt to account for differences in interchange fees in various countries.