WASHINGTON – The US Justice Department plans to allege that Visa illegally monopolised the US debit card market, according to people familiar with the matter.
The antitrust division is set to file a lawsuit as soon as Sept 24 accusing the operator of the largest US payments network of a range of anticompetitive conduct, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the case.
The US government is expected to file the case in federal court.
Antitrust enforcers are preparing to accuse Visa of taking steps to keep rivals from challenging its dominance in the debit card market, said the people.
The US government’s allegations include that Visa made exclusive agreements to hinder the expansion of competing payment networks and thwarted efforts by technology companies to enter the market.
Visa shares fell as much as 1.95 per cent in post-market trading in New York on Sept 23 after the news.
Visa and the US Justice Department declined to comment.
The Justice Department lawsuit would be the culmination of years-long probes of Visa’s business practices.
The investigation was born out of the company’s failed acquisition of the financial technology infrastructure firm Plaid in 2021.
Over the course of the inquiry, the Justice Department also examined Visa’s pricing structure in what is known in the industry as “tokenisation” technology. Tokenisation refers to a process by which a piece of sensitive data – such as a credit card number – is turned into a unique value called a token.
Payments network rival Mastercard settled a separate enforcement action in 2023 targeting its tokenisation technology practices brought by the US Federal Trade Commission, which also enforces antitrust laws. BLOOMBERG
