Sunday, November 12, 2006

New Zealand authorities to attack no-surcharge rule

Card schemes have a habit of starting out as incompetetive as possible. So if undisputed they will introduce a no-surcharge rule in scheme-rules. Until regulators attack it and then they drop it. In this article we can see that New Zealand regulators have apparently found out what the RBA were doing and now are on a antitrust mission of their own.

So much for the no-surcharge in New Zealand. Although the situation may not be as clear as one would think. There may be a tourist issue/effect involved (see also the paper by Rochet and Tirole on the tourist test).