The Biden government’s Justice Department is investigating Visa over its debit card practices, the San Francisco-based credit card company revealed on Friday.
Visa acknowledged the investigation in a March 19 lawsuit for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the process, Visa said the US Department of Justice informed the company about its investigation and asked “to preserve relevant documents related to the investigation”.
“We believe that Visa’s debit practices in the USA are in compliance with applicable laws. Visa is cooperating with the Department of Justice, ”says the document, which was presented by Visa’s executive vice president, Kelly Mahon Tullier, the company’s legal and administrative director.
According to reports by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, which released the story for the first time, the Justice Department’s antitrust division was investigating whether the largest US card chain is pressuring merchants to forward debit card payments over credit card networks. more expensive cards, mainly in the digital market.
In an application earlier this month to the SEC, Visa reported that the period between January 1 and March 7 saw an 8% increase in payments in the United States compared to the same period last year. Most of this growth was due to an increase of 23% in the volume of payments by debit card, informs the process.
Visa Inc. is a company registered in Delaware and registered on the New York Stock Exchange.
Raheem Hosseini is an editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @raheemfh