After Visa, DOJ Probes Mastercard Over Alleged Anti-Competitive Debit-Card Practices
- The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Mastercard Inc (NYSE: MA) regarding the potential violation of antitrust rules in its debit-card business.
- In April, Mastercard received a civil investigative demand from the department seeking documents regarding the potential violation, Bloomberg reports.
- Mastercard is cooperating with the probe, focusing on its U.S. debit program and competition with other networks and technologies.
- The DOJ's action comes nearly two years after the regulator began a similar inquiry into Visa Inc's (NYSE: V) practices.
- The regulator started investigating Visa's debit practices after it prosecuted the company over its planned $5.3 billion purchase of Plaid Inc. Ultimately, the companies had to dump the deal over anti-competitive grounds.
- Mastercard CFO Sachin Mehra said in an interview, "It's hard to speculate about the potential outcome, but these types of investigations do take a number of years."
- The DOJ inquiry results from a 2010 law requiring banks to include two competing networks on their debit cards.
- Visa and Mastercard's smaller peers like Pulse, Star, and NYCE can be cheaper for merchants for routing transactions versus the more prominent players.
- Price Action: MA shares traded lower by 1.67% at $373.67 premarket on the last check Monday.
- Photo via Wikimedia Commons
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