Published on Aug 14, 2025
Obscure and rising commercial card fees that Visa (V), Mastercard (M) and other major card networks set for business-to-business payments should be capped by the EU, Metro CEO Steffen Greubel said in an interview with The Capitol Forum.
“It’s a money-making machine for them and a value-destroying machine for us and our customers, and at the end the consumer,” said Greubel, who joined the Germany-based food wholesaler in 2021. He is leading an initiative to expose what he describes as a “silent tax” by seeking fairer EU rules to ultimately challenge the behavior of the likes of Visa and Mastercard.
Metro operates primarily a chain of wholesale membership-only cash and carry stores under the Metro brand in 21 countries mainly in Europe. It generated a turnover of 31 billion euros in the 2023/24 financial year.
Greubel called on the European Commission to revise the EU’s 2015 Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) by applying the same cap for interchange fees on commercial card transactions as the regulation currently imposes on consumer debit and credit cards – 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.
The call comes amid a preliminary antitrust probe by the commission into Visa and Mastercard’s scheme fees. Officials are looking at how the two card networks set fees paid by acquirers, such as Elavon and Worldline (EPA: WLN), and ultimately passed on to retailers. Regulators suspect these fee structures may violate EU competition rules.
The IFR was introduced to reduce the cost of card payments for merchants and, ultimately, consumers, as well as to create a more competitive and transparent payments industry in the EU. The regulation is overseen and enforced by the commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. Alongside the antitrust investigation, retailers are calling for the IFR to also regulate Visa and Mastercard’s scheme fees.
Interchange fees are paid by the merchant’s bank, or acquirer, to the cardholder’s bank, the so-called issuer. They are dictated by scheme cards and passed on to merchants.
‘Cost driver’. Metro says scheme fees are also a problem, but the company’s focus is on interchange fees on commercial cards as they are a greater cost driver – they are between 1.5% and 2%, compared to around 0.05–0.2% scheme fees.
Unregulated commercial card interchange fees are an “additional cost” to Metro, “for no reason,” Greubel said. Since 2021, the share of Metro’s turnover paid via commercial cards in 12 EU countries has risen by more than 30%, driving a corresponding 30% to 40% increase – or more – in the total commercial card interchange fees the company pays, he said.
This situation means the company needs to generate “a lot of efficiencies” to compensate for the higher card fees. It’s also creating inflation because hidden fees are essentially costs ultimately borne by consumers, Greubel said. Metro’s main customer group are hotels, restaurants and caterers, followed by traders such as small grocery stores.
Greubel said he wants to bring more attention to the review of the IFR to ensure that the same logic applies to consumer cards versus commercial cards. “What is valid for the end consumer must also be valid for the business that is serving the end consumer,” he said.
The commission said it’s “not aware of a substantial increase in the number of commercial cards issued, their use and fees charged for commercial cards,” pointing to a 2020 report on the application of the IFR, which found “no evidence of a rise in the market shares of commercial cards.” The commission is “available to further discuss with stakeholders evidence that they may have,” a spokesperson said.
“The commission continues to actively monitor developments on these markets in continuous dialogue with the national competent authorities, who are in charge of the application of the IFR,” the spokesperson added.
A Visa spokesperson said that the payments landscape in Germany is changing and the company sees “an opportunity to drive further innovation for the good of local businesses and the German economy.”
“While we do not receive any revenue from commercial interchange fees, we have taken great care as a network to balance the needs between all participants in the payments ecosystem,” the spokesperson said.
Mastercard and American Express didn’t respond to requests for comment.
