Amazon & Visa Price War.

Amazon has announced today they will not be accepting Visa payments from Brits from 19th January 2022.

This comes to light because of Visa’s high fees for processing card transactions.

Amazon has supposedly told its customers today that it will no longer be accepting payments via this method and that all customers need to update their credit card details so that their subscriptions do not become affected.

Amazon has disputed the costs and has stated that the prices should be going down because of “technological advancements,” the online retailer will still accept debit cards, including Visa, and non-Visa credit cards.

An Amazon spokesman said, “The cost of accepting card payments continues to be an obstacle for businesses striving to provide the best prices for customers. These costs should be going down over time with technological advancements, but instead, they continue to stay high or even rise. As a result of Visa’s continued high cost of payments, we regret that Amazon.co.uk will no longer accept UK-issued Visa credit cards as of January 19th, 2022. With the rapidly changing payments landscape around the world, we will continue innovating on behalf of customers to add and promote faster, cheaper, and more inclusive payment options to our stores across the globe.”

On the flip side, a Visa spokesperson said, “UK shoppers can use their Visa debit and credit cards at Amazon UK today and throughout the holiday season. We are very disappointed that Amazon is threatening to restrict consumer choice in the future. When consumer choice is limited, nobody wins. We have a long-standing relationship with Amazon, and we continue to work toward a resolution, so our cardholders can use their preferred Visa credit cards at Amazon UK without Amazon-imposed restrictions come January 2022.”

From the Editor.

For the consumer, this will become an inconvenience if they wish to continue to use Amazon and do not have an alternative payment method.

I do have a recommendation, but first would like to say I am not affiliated or get any monetary compensation for my recommendation with this bank or “Mastercard“, however, I have been a customer of “Cashplus” from the time they first started out in 2005.

Not only has this challenger bank become an official bank this year they have also been shortlisted for “The Atffi Banking Awards 2021“, but by far the best part is they are affiliated with “Mastercard” and one can open a bank account without any credit checks online and be guaranteed an account even if you have a poor credit history.

Hopefully, whatever happens, it will work itself out in the end, but Visa is naive to think that consumers will not be looking for alternative credit/debit card providers to counteract the problem facing them. Furthermore, I disagree with their statement that nobody will win this war as the consumer is astute and will not think twice about changing providers.

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