The battle between Walmart and Visa escalated Monday in the small city of Thunder Bay, Ont., with the credit-card giant encouraging customers to take their wallets to stores that accept their cards — which means pretty much any store that isn’t Walmart.
“Visa remains committed to doing everything reasonable to ensure Canadians can use their Visa cards everywhere they wish to shop – including at Walmart stores,” a spokesperson for Visa told Global News in an emailed statement on Monday.
“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.”
After months of negotiations over credit card transaction fees, Walmart has eliminated Visa as a payment option at three stores in Thunder Bay, effective Monday.
READ MORE: Walmart Visa battle will have unknown consequences for Canadian small businesses
The move could spread to every Walmart store in Canada if the two companies can’t come to an agreement.
“This change will … be rolled out in phases across the country,” Walmart spokesperson Alex Roberton said Monday. “A date has not yet been set for the phased rollout.”
Walmart has evaluated credit card transaction fees in Canada and the rest of the world, Robinson noted, “and found that the fees applied to credit card purchases in Canada remain unacceptably high.”
“Lowering costs such as high credit card fees is essential for us to be able to keep our prices low and continue saving our customers money,” he added.
READ MORE: Walmart vs. Visa: Canadians side with retail giant in fee dispute, poll says
Walmart says it pays more than $100 million in fees annually for customers using credit cards like Visa, MasterCard and Discover.
With files from the Canadian Press.
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