Card scheme fees have been the least explicable line on a UK merchant statement for years. That is now, slowly, changing. On 30 July 2026 the Payment Systems Regulator gave Visa and Mastercard two binding specific directions covering how they disclose scheme and processing fees and how they make pricing decisions. The headline for merchants is not a rate cut, because the PSR has not capped anything. The headline is a timetable, and the first date on it falls this autumn.

What the PSR actually did, and what it did not

The directions follow the PSR's market review of card scheme and processing fees, which concluded that Visa and Mastercard face little competitive pressure and that acquirers cannot reliably explain, check or avoid the fees they are billed. Two remedies were adopted in policy statement PS26/1: Specific Direction 22 on information, transparency and complexity, and Specific Direction 23 on pricing governance. Both were given under section 54 of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013.

It is worth being clear about the limits. The PSR consulted on four remedies in April 2025 and adopted two of them. No price control forms part of the package. These directions govern what the schemes must tell acquirers and how they must document a pricing decision, not what they are allowed to charge. Anyone expecting scheme fees to fall in 2027 as a matter of regulation will be disappointed. What changes is the quality of the information behind the number, which is what makes a fee negotiable in the first place.

The dates that matter

Both directions came into force on 30 July 2026, but the substantive obligations are staged. The sequence, as set out in PS26/1 and analysed in detail by Bratby Law, runs like this:

  • 30 October 2026: each scheme must write to its acquirers with a proposed compliance policy, explaining what it already does, what it intends to change, and inviting their views. This is the consultative stage, and it is the point at which acquirer feedback carries weight.
  • 30 November 2026: pricing governance processes, controls and training must be in place under SD23. From that date, any acquirer fee decision needs a signed written record covering its purpose, structure and expected UK revenue impact.
  • 30 January 2027: the schemes must write to acquirers again, summarising the feedback received and confirming the timetable for further change.
  • 30 July 2027: full compliance with the information requirements. For every fee charged on a UK transaction, the scheme must state what the fee is for, how it is triggered and how it is calculated, using a consistent billing identifier.
  • 30 January 2028: the earliest date a new or modified fee can take effect under the six-month advance notice rule, giving acquirers time to model the cost before it lands.

A materiality threshold of £250,000 of expected annual gross UK revenue applies to parts of both directions, raised from the £100,000 net figure the PSR originally consulted on. Smaller fee decisions still have to be listed and reported, but they escape the fuller reasoned record.

Why transparency at scheme level reaches your statement

Merchants sit one step downstream of all this. The schemes' direct customers are the acquirers, and the PSR's theory is that better information flows through acquiring contracts into merchant pricing. That transmission is real but it is not automatic, and it depends heavily on how your own processing is priced.

On a fully blended rate, a scheme fee change is invisible to you: it either erodes your provider's margin or it does not, and you never see the movement. On interchange plus plus (IC++) pricing, interchange, scheme fees and the acquirer's margin are broken out separately, so a scheme fee increase shows up as a scheme fee increase rather than being quietly absorbed into a headline percentage. That is precisely the visibility the PSR is trying to create at the wholesale level, and merchants on transparent pricing are the ones best placed to benefit from it. Blended pricing still suits plenty of smaller businesses on simplicity grounds, but it is worth knowing which trade-off you have made.

What to do before the autumn

There is nothing here that requires action this week, but there are two sensible moves this quarter. First, ask your acquirer or gateway whether they intend to respond to the schemes' October compliance letters, and what they expect to change in how scheme fees appear on your statement. A provider that cannot answer is telling you something. Second, pull three months of statements and check whether you can identify each cost line. If you cannot, that is the gap the PSR has spent two years documenting, and it is one you can close today by moving to a provider that itemises rather than waiting until July 2027.

Monek is an FCA-authorised payment institution (FRN 920628) providing a UK payment gateway and we price on both models: card processing from 0.99% blended, or IC++ from 0.49% for higher-volume businesses that want interchange, scheme fees and margin shown separately. Next-day settlement, a free WooCommerce payment gateway plugin, native Xero integration, Virtual Terminal and Pay by Link all sit on the same UK-supported platform, and terminal hire starts at £25 a month. If you would like a plain-English read on what your current statement actually contains, our team will run a no-obligation rate comparison and walk you through it line by line.