Visa is compensating retailers for the disruption caused by its European-wide system failure on 1 June 2018.
The credit card company will pay a fee of up to 40p for each lost Visa transaction, based on its records. Its calculations do not include any lost transactions for non-Visa transactions (for example Mastercard or American Express) because other card brands were not affected. The calculations also exclude circumstantial losses which may have occurred as a result of the disruption.
However, retailers may not receive anything if they only lost a small number of transactions, as Visa is relying on payment processing companies to pass on amounts due. Worldpay, for example, is donating sums of less than £5 to the Prince’s Trust unless retailers specifically ask for their money. It expects the charity to benefit by over £50,000 as a result.
One in every three pounds spent in the UK is processed through Visa’s systems and the hardware meltdown caused chaos across the continent, with large queues forming in stores and drivers stranded on forecourts unable to pay for fuel.
