Why You Might Be Having Trouble Paying With Credit at Walmart

From October 24th, 2016, Manitobans might begin to find it difficult to pay for their Walmart purchases with their Visa cards. Along with stores in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Walmart locations across Manitoba will no longer be accepting Visa as a form of payment. The company says that Visa’s own service charges are to blame.

While Visa and Mastercard have both assured the Federal government that they have lowered merchant fees as per the government’s request, each retail merchant is able to negotiate their own fees. Walmart says their credit card fees exceed $100 million per year.

Walmart intends to continue this Visa ban rollout until all 400+ stores across Canada no longer accept Visa.

Walmart is often painted as the bad guy, bringing in it’s huge department stores and low prices where local “mom and pop” operations used to dominate sales. Small businesses often have to shut their doors, unable to compete with the retail giant’s low prices and convenience. Many towns and cities across Canada have seen protests when Walmart announces a new store, with some locations outright denying Walmart the ability to do business within their city limits.

This time, however, smaller merchants across Canada are echoing the same sentiments as Walmart, calling for lower credit card fees for merchants. This ban on Visa serves to protest for all Canadian retail endeavours, big and small. Visa will undoubtedly lose a great deal of revenue from the Walmart ban.

The Canadian government vowed recently to step in and conduct its own audit of the fees credit card companies charge Canadian businesses, ensuring the rates be brought down to “reasonable and fair levels”.

In the meantime, Manitobans, that means you better pack your Mastercard on your trips to Walmart and hope that Visa hears the call for lower rates eventually.

Do you think Walmart should ban Visa until they lower rates? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.