Online commerce site eBay says it will stop accepting American Express as a form of payment starting in August.
The company cited “unacceptably high” processing fees as the reason.
“After careful consideration, eBay has decided to no longer accept American Express globally effective August 17 due to the unacceptably high fees American Express charges for processing credit card transactions,” eBay said in a statement.
Processing fees are imposed every time a customer makes a card purchase, and have long been a pain point for businesses.
EBay said the industry needs more competition and regulation to keep exorbitant fees at bay.
“At a time when payment processing costs should be declining because of technological advancements, investments in fraud capabilities and customer protections by merchants like eBay, credit card transaction fees continue to rise unabated because of a lack of meaningful competition,” the company said. “As consumers and small businesses are worried about inflation and rising costs, there is a need for more robust regulations to drive greater competition to credit card networks and help reduce transaction processing costs for merchants and their customers.”
EBay customers were notified via email about the change. The company said it is confident customers will continue to use alternative forms of payment on its platform, based on research.
EBay has 132 million active users worldwide.
This is not the first time a major merchant has walked away from AmEx. Perhaps most notably, Costco stopped working with the credit card company nearly a decade ago, according to The Associated Press.
