1. Neutrality and regulation One example: card payments
Scott McInnes – Partner, Bird & Bird LLP
2nd Chillin’ Competition Conference
21 November 2016

2. Four-party card scheme (e. g
Four-party card scheme (e.g. Mastercard, Visa, Bancontact) vs three-party card scheme (e.g. American Express)
Source: EC January 2012 Green Paper "Towards an integrated European market for card, internet and mobile payments"

3. Interchange Fee Regulation – attempt at achieving neutrality
"Chapter II [interchange fee caps] does not apply to the following: [… ] (c) transactions with payment cards issued by three party payment card schemes." (Article 1(3) IFR) "When a three party payment card scheme licenses other payment service providers for the issuance of card-based payment instruments or the acquiring of card-based payment transactions, or both, or issues card-based payment instruments with a co-branding partner or through an agent, it is considered to be a four party payment card scheme. […]" (Article 1(5) IFR)