After Visa, DOJ Probes Mastercard Over Alleged Anti-Competitive Debit-Card Practices

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Mastercard Inc MA regarding the potential violation of antitrust rules in its debit-card business.
In April, Mastercard received a civil investigative demand from the department seeking documents regarding the potential violation, Bloomberg reports.
Mastercard is cooperating with the probe, focusing on its U.S. debit program and competition with other networks and technologies.
The DOJ's action comes nearly two years after the regulator began a similar inquiry into Visa Inc's V practices.
The regulator started investigating Visa's debit practices after it prosecuted the company over its planned $5.3 billion purchase of Plaid Inc. Ultimately, the companies had to dump the deal over anti-competitive grounds.
Mastercard CFO Sachin Mehra said in an interview, "It's hard to speculate about the potential outcome, but these types of investigations do take a number of years."
The DOJ inquiry results from a 2010 law requiring banks to include two competing networks on their debit cards.
Visa and Mastercard's smaller peers like Pulse, Star, and NYCE can be cheaper for merchants for routing transactions versus the more prominent players.
Price Action: MA shares traded lower by 1.67% at $373.67 premarket on the last check Monday.
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