Exemption for Co-operation between Acquirers for the Development of a Solution due to Mismatch in Currency Standards

The Icelandic Competition Authority (ICA) has today authorized Valitor, Borgun and KORTA to co-operate on the development of a solution for use when payment cards are used in online transactions in Icelandic krónur. The aim of the collaboration is to develop a procedure that can resolve discrepancies in the number of decimal places between the standards of the international card companies on the one hand and the so-called ISO 4217 standard on the other.
The Competition Authority has imposed certain conditions for the co-operation, which are primarily intended to ensure that the co-operation remains within the limits defined by its purpose and that the solution will be accessible to all acquirers, regardless of the country in which they operate.