Visa, Mastercard propose merchants' tourist card fee cut to end EU probe

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Visa <V.N> and Mastercard <MA.N> have offered to reduce merchants' charges for non-EU credit and debit cards by at least 40 percent to end an EU antitrust investigation, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Visa, the world's largest payments network operator, and No. 2 player Mastercard have proposed a 0.2 percent fee on debit card payments carried out in shops and a 0.3 percent fee on credit card payments, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

For online payments, debit card charges would be 1.15 percent and 1.50 percent for credit cards.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)