From today’s Open Europe news summary:
The European Parliament’s economic affairs committee yesterday voted in favour of a proposal to limit credit card payment fees charged to retailers by banks at 0.3% of the transaction value, reports EUobserver. Negotiations with the Council on the final shape of the rules are not expected before the European Parliament elections in May. EUobserver
The certain consequences of this new proposal will be to reduce the number of businesses that take credit cards, because the credit card companies will not be able to make a profit serving small businesses with low average individual transaction amounts. The big retailers will benefit from this new law and may even have had a hand in drafting it.