Amazon scraps scheduled ban on UK Visa payments

Technology and online shopping leviathan Amazon has said it no longer plans to stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards for payments this month.

According to the BBC, Amazon stated: “The expected change regarding the use of Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk will no longer take place on January 19.” It also said that it was working with Visa on “a potential solution that will enable customers to continue using their Visa credit cards”.

In November last year Amazon notified many UK customers that it would no longer be accepting Visa credit cards as payments from 2022.

Visa issued us with a statement at the time saying: “We are very disappointed that Amazon is threatening to restrict consumer choice in the future. When consumer choice is limited, nobody wins. We have a long-standing relationship with Amazon, and we continue to work toward a resolution, so our cardholders can use their preferred Visa credit cards at Amazon UK without Amazon-imposed restrictions come January 2022.“

It’s not clear either what exactly is behind the dispute, though it has been speculated that it could be down to Visa thinking about raising its transaction fees in the UK, which it can do now that we have left the EU.

There doesn’t seem to be any indication as to the nature or timeline of the discussions either, but for now Visa credit card users can continue to buy things on Amazon worry free – that is if they haven’t pre-emptively changed their payment method already.