Card fees go to court as Visa and Mastercard report, and Tencent signs with Visa

Monday, 2 November 2026  ·  11 min read

In this issue

🌍 Cross-border⚡ Domestic & real-time💳 Cards🌏 Asia-Pacific⚖️ Regulation & policy💰 Deals & funding🔍 Deep dive

Card fees in court, card volumes still growing

On 26 October, a US appeals court upheld the ruling that threw out the Federal Reserve’s debit fee cap, and two collective claims worth a reported £5bn were filed against Visa and Mastercard in London over UK interchange. In the same week Visa reported $45.9 billion in fiscal-year net revenue and Mastercard reported cross-border volume growth of 11%. In Asia, Tencent and Visa agreed to connect Weixin Pay with Visa’s networks, and Malaysian bank apps can now pay at Alipay+ merchants in five markets.

On 29 October, Tencent and Visa signed a memorandum of understanding covering payments by travellers entering and leaving China, through Tencent’s TenPay Global platform and Visa Pay, more Visa Direct remittances from overseas senders into Weixin Pay, and joint work on AI agent payments through Visa Intelligent Commerce. The companies gave no launch dates or volumes (TWTWIP; Tencent; CNBC).

On 28 October, the Singapore Payments Network (SPaN), set up by MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore to govern the country’s national payment schemes, named Derek Chan, formerly chief business officer of Banking Computer Services, as chief executive. Jacqueline Loh of MAS chairs its 11-member board (TWTWIP; MAS; The Straits Times).

On 27 October, Visa reported full-year net revenue up 15% and fourth-quarter net revenue up 13% to $12.1 billion. Cross-border volume excluding intra-Europe grew 14% in constant dollars, processed transactions rose 10% to 74.2 billion, and the quarter carried a $469 million provision for the US interchange multidistrict litigation (TWTWIP; Visa; Payments Dive).

Mastercard’s third-quarter results on 29 October showed net income up 18% to $4.6 billion, gross dollar volume up 7% in local currency to $3.0 trillion, cross-border volume up 11% and switched transactions up 9% (TWTWIP; Mastercard; The Motley Fool).

On 26 October, StraitsX, the Singapore issuer of XSGD and XUSD, said a partnership with Visa lets it support stablecoin-backed card programmes for fintechs, wallets and digital asset platforms in more than 100 markets. StraitsX reported a 40-fold rise in card transaction value between the fourth quarters of 2024 and 2025 (TWTWIP; Visa).

Adyen reported third-quarter net revenue of €738.1 million on 28 October, on processed volume up 30% to €451.1 billion. It lowered its 2026 EBITDA margin expectation to 50% and dropped its medium-term EBITDA objective, and its shares fell about 12% in early trading, according to Reuters (TWTWIP; Adyen; Reuters via Euronext).

On 28 October, PayNet said customers of Maybank, CIMB and Hong Leong Bank can scan Alipay+ merchant QR codes in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the Philippines and Laos from their banking apps, with Bank Islam to follow. Users need no Alipay+ account or separate wallet (TWTWIP; The Star; Hong Leong Bank).

On 26 October, a three-judge Eighth Circuit panel upheld a 2025 district court ruling that vacated the Regulation II cap of 21 cents plus 0.05% and a one-cent fraud-prevention add-on. The court held that the Durbin Amendment lets the Fed count only costs specific to each debit transaction (TWTWIP; Payments Dive).

Two collective claims filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 26 October seek compensation for interchange that UK businesses paid on consumer debit, credit and prepaid cards between 23 October 2020 and 23 October 2026. Hausfeld runs an opt-out claim for businesses with group turnover under £100 million and Harcus Parker an opt-in claim for larger ones (TWTWIP; The Guardian; Hausfeld).

Ripple said on 26 October that the OCC granted final approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, which will manage the reserves behind its RLUSD stablecoin, worth $2.5 billion, act as collateral trustee for holders and offer digital asset custody. Issuance stays with its New York trust company (TWTWIP; Ripple; Banking Dive).

On 29 October, the BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures published a report grouping central bank tools under four roles, as issuer of money, operator, overseer and catalyst. It covers fast payment systems, non-bank providers, tokenised deposits, stablecoins and programmable platforms (TWTWIP; BIS).

the price of a card payment goes to court

Visa and Mastercard reported double-digit revenue growth in the same week that a US appeals court and a UK tribunal claim took aim at what merchants pay to accept their cards.

In St Louis, the Eighth Circuit agreed with a district court that the Fed built its debit fee cap on the wrong costs. Regulation II has allowed large issuers 21 cents plus 0.05% of the transaction, with a one-cent fraud add-on, since 2011. The panel held that the Durbin Amendment allows only costs specific to each transaction, which excludes banks’ fixed costs for authorisation, clearing and settlement, network fees and fraud losses (Payments Dive). The Fed can use a proxy such as average variable cost. Its own 2023 proposal, which kept the old method, already came out at 14.4 cents, so a cap rebuilt on narrower costs is likely to be lower again. Bank groups still have the Sixth Circuit, where Linney’s Pizza v. Federal Reserve is pending after a Kentucky court upheld the rule.

In London, the claim filed on 26 October covers six years of consumer card interchange paid by UK businesses. People close to the case told The Guardian it could be worth about £5bn (The Guardian). It adds to the commercial card claims that Stephen Allen, the same class representative, already brings against both networks.

The earnings show where the networks earn their growth. Visa’s other revenue rose 40% to $5.7 billion for the year, while international transaction revenue grew 8%, and Visa booked $469 million for the US interchange litigation in its fourth quarter (Visa). Mastercard’s cross-border assessments grew 16% against 11% for cross-border volume, and its value-added services revenue rose 19% (Mastercard).

Interchange is paid to the issuing bank, so a lower debit cap first hits the revenue of US banks with more than $10 billion in assets. Networks feel it later, when issuers push back on network fees and incentive deals to recover the loss. Both networks are growing the revenue lines that sit outside interchange, such as fraud scoring, data, tokens and cross-border pricing, and those lines grew fastest this quarter.

Watch for the Fed’s response to the ruling, the Sixth Circuit decision in Linney’s Pizza, and the tribunal’s certification hearing on the opt-out claim.

Regulation II

Regulation II is the Federal Reserve rule that implements the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act. It caps the interchange fee that debit card issuers with $10 billion or more in assets can receive, at 21 cents plus 0.05% of the transaction and a one-cent fraud-prevention adjustment, and it requires every debit card to work on at least two unaffiliated networks (Federal Reserve). This week the Eighth Circuit upheld the ruling that vacated the fee cap.

The 21-cent debit cap took effect on 1 October 2011 and was never changed before a district court vacated it in 2025. The Fed’s own survey data showed issuers’ average cost per transaction falling over that period, which is why its October 2023 proposal would have cut the base fee to 14.4 cents (Federal Reserve).