Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the scale of the competitive advantage gained by any particular card scheme being exempted from interchange fee regulations as part of the EU Multilateral Interchange Fees regulation.

The European Interchange Fee Regulation is directly applicable to UK law. However, there are discretions afforded to Member States, including an exemption for certain card schemes which have less than a 3% market share in the UK. The Government has consulted on this issue and will set out its response in due course.