Barclays slapped with £8.4m fine over card payment failings
Barclays has been slapped with an £8.4m fine from the payments regulator today after failing to comply with rules governing the cost of card transactions with retailers.
In a statement today, the Payment System Regulator said the bank had failed to provide retailers with the full information on the cost of card services and retailers were “unable to easily understand the transaction fees” as a result.
The failings left retailers unable to shop around for better deals and fully understand the cost of their deal, the PSR said.
“It’s vital that retailers and consumers get value for money on payment services – the interchange fee rules are an important part of making sure this happens,” Chris Hemsley, the PSR’s Managing Director, said.
“Barclays’ failure to be transparent with retailers about the fees they pay for card services meant retailers could have been missing out on better deals”.
The watchdog’s investigation found that Barclays failed to comply with the IFR for over three years in total, from December 2015 to December 2018. Barclays processed a third of all card payment transactions in the UK during the period, meaning “thousands of retailers and transactions were affected”, the PSR said.
Barclays is understood to have been going through a large-scale system upgrade when Article 12 – which details the rules – was passed, causing a delay to the availability of transaction level reports.
Since the bank fell in line with the rules in 2018, 383 UK merchants in total have requested Article 12 reports, City PM understands.
A Barclays spokesperson said: “Barclays has reached a resolution with the PSR following an investigation into its historic compliance with Article 12 of the Interchange Fee Regulation.
“As part of this resolution, Barclays has agreed to pay a penalty of £8.4m. Barclays fully co-operated with the PSR’s investigation.”