Walmart Turns Visa Away In Some Stores In Canada

It looks like Walmart Canada wasn’t bluffing.

As of Monday the retail chain has officially stopped taking Visa cards in several locations after failing to reach a deal with the card network over what it called “unacceptably high” fees.

The coming controversy first became headline fodder about a month ago – when Walmart announced that it had been unable to come to an agreement with Visa on an “acceptable” fee. At the time it threatened to oust Visa unless it could get a “better deal.”

A “better deal,” however, was not in the offing, it seems, and as of yesterday three stores in Thunder Bay, Ontario are now without Visa – and soon they will be joined by the other 370 Walmart locations in Canada.   The details of how that will roll out are unknown, though so far it does seem to be a Canada-only situation – Walmart in the U.S. is still taking Visa everywhere.

As for what’s next – that remains up in the air, though a Walmart spokesman remains “optimistic that we will reach an agreement with Visa.”

Visa, for its part, has shot back by suggesting that consumers take their business elsewhere. “Until an agreement can be reached in this commercial dispute, we encourage shoppers to use their cards at the more than 5,200 stores in Thunder Bay that accept Visa,” Visa said.

Visa “remains committed to doing everything reasonable” to ensure its cards can be used at Walmart stores, a spokeswoman said in a statement. Visa has also asserted that Walmart pays one of the lowest interchange rates of any merchant in the country.

Surveys conducted on this issue in Canada suggest that consumers are sympathetic with Walmart but believe that they would fail to see any savings passed directly to them if interchange rates were reduced. Survey results also suggested that consumers would be more inclined to shop elsewhere if their Visa cards could not be used at Walmart stores.