Since 2015, interchange on consumer cards in the UK has been capped at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit. On 26 October 2026, Harcus Parker and Hausfeld announced an application to the Competition Appeal Tribunal for a collective claim on exactly those fees: up to £5 billion, for about one million businesses, on card payments since October 2020. The Tribunal has not yet decided whether the claim can proceed.
It is the third interchange claim now open in the UK. Each one covers a different line of what a merchant pays its acquirer.
What each claim covers
Commercial and inter-regional cards, June 2016 to June 2022. Certified in September 2024, more than £4 billion. Commercial-card interchange was never capped by the Interchange Fee Regulation. On a statement it sits under its own card-product lines, at rates well above the consumer caps.
EEA-issued cards used remotely at UK merchants, since October 2020. Filed on 8 October 2026 for about 126,000 businesses, more than £700 million. After Brexit the EU caps stopped applying to these transactions. Visa moved inter-regional card-not-present rates from 0.2% to 1.15% on debit and from 0.3% to 1.5% on credit in October 2021; Mastercard followed in April 2022. The Payment Systems Regulator put the extra cost at £150 to £200 million a year. On a statement these are the inter-regional lines of the interchange section.
Consumer debit, credit and prepaid cards, since October 2020. The new claim. About one million businesses with revenue under £100 million would be included unless they opt out; larger ones would have to opt in. These are the capped lines, and for most merchants the bulk of interchange paid.
Why a capped fee can be challenged
The answer is in the Tribunal’s judgment of 27 June 2025 in the umbrella interchange proceedings. Default multilateral interchange fees restrict competition by object, whether or not a regulation caps them: a fee set collectively by the schemes remains a fee set collectively. The cap limits the amount. It does not change the mechanism.
Visa and Mastercard have said they will appeal. Two questions were left to later trials: how much of any overcharge merchants passed on to their customers, and whether an exemption applies. Those two answers, not the headline values, will decide what the three claims are worth.
Where this sits on a statement
A merchant billed on interchange++ receives interchange, scheme fees and the acquirer’s margin as separate lines, with interchange broken down by card product and issuer region. Each of the three claims corresponds to a subset of those interchange lines, and the statements since October 2020 are the record of what was paid.
A merchant on a blended rate receives one percentage. The acquirer holds the breakdown.
That is the operational point at this stage. Whether either new claim is authorised, and on what terms, is for the Tribunal.
Sources
The Guardian, 26 October 2026 · British Retail Consortium, 16 October 2026 · Competition Appeal Tribunal judgment of 27 June 2025, as reported by Global Legal Post · Harcus Parker, 4 September 2024
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If this reading of the UK claims is useful, subscribe: one research edition a month, and shorter notes when the evidence justifies them.On 26 October 2026, Harcus Parker and Hausfeld announced an application to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal for an opt-out collective action against Visa and Mastercard, valued at up to £5 billion. It is the third UK interchange claim in two years, and the first aimed at consumer cards, whose fees have been capped since 2015. Nothing has been authorised yet.