MasterCard has announced plans to assess undisclosed fees on “staged” U.S. digital-wallet operators, such as PayPal, Square, Intuit’s Go Payment and Google Wallet, that serve between the card and the user and thus don’t provide the network with sufficient transaction data. They may avoid the fee by taking part in a new registration process that requires them to implement revised data-sharing and transparency rules.
From NFC World, citing MasterCard:
“The digital wallet operator registration program is needed to “ensure the integrity of our brand/network as new ways of working with the network continue to evolve.”
Visa says it will not impose a similar fee.
However, Visa’s CEO, Charlie Scharf, contends assessing fees on staged digital wallets is “totally appropriate to do.”