Amazon bans Visa credit cards in UK ❌ 💳; Somewhat disappointing Paytm’s IPO 🤷‍♂️; First bank in the Baltics to offer crypto trading 🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹

Good Morning FinTech, 19 November

Good morning Everyone,

And happy Friday! The week is almost over - you made it! 🥳 But before you go relaxing, here’s a final mix of 3 great FinTech stories for today:

Amazon bans Visa credit cards in UK ❌ 💳

Breaking🔥 Starting 19 January 2022, retail giant Amazon has announced it will stop accepting Visa credit cards issued in the United Kingdom, citing high transaction fees.

The context 👉 Brexit has obviously influenced the online payment market, with Visa no longer being controlled by the EU authorities to keep its fees within a limit.

As a result, throughout 2021, Visa has thus imposed higher charges on its credit card payments, determining US retailer Amazon to drop from their long-time partnership. Visa’s fees have gone up from 0.2% - 0.3% to 1.15% for every Amazon purchase via a credit card. That’s a lot… 😬

More context 👉 Fees to accept online credit cards tend to be higher in part because they carry a larger risk of fraud - bringing on higher costs for e-commerce merchants like Amazon.