Introduction
The Payment Services Regulator (PSR) issued its first decision enforcing competition law in the payments sector on 31st March 2021. The PSR is a concurrent competition regulator for the payments sector along with the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). This is the first time the PSR it has used its competition powers since it became a concurrent competition regulator in 2015.
The PSR provisionally decided that five parties were guilty of taking part in a cartel in relation to pre-paid cards used by local authorities to distribute welfare payments to vulnerable members of society, such as the homeless, victims of domestic violence and asylum seekers contrary to Chapter I of Competition Act 1998. The PSR alleged that Mastercard, allpay, APS, PFS and Sulion all engaged in anti-competitive behaviour by agreeing not to compete or poach each other’s clients.