LONDON, Dec 13 Reuters Britain39;s payments regulator on Wednesday provisionally proposed a cap on crossborder interchange fees charged by Mastercard and Visa on transactions made between the UK and European single market.

The Payment Systems Regulator PSR said a cap would protect businesses from overpaying, after it published interim findings of a market review on interchange fees charged since Brexit, when the bloc39;s longstanding cap ceased to apply in Britain.

UK lawmakers had piled pressure on the PSR to consider reintroducing a cap in Britain, and the watchdog said last year it would conduct two market reviews, but that an outcome could take years.

The PSR said the review focused on charges set by Mastercard and Visa, as they account for 99 of debit and credit card payments in the UK.

The watchdog said both companies had likely raised fees to an unduly high level, costing UK businesses an extra 150200 million pounds 190250 million last year due to fee increases.

In short, at this stage, we do not think this market is working well, PSR managing director Chris Hemsley said in a statement.

Under the proposals, the PSR would impose an initial timelimited cap of 0.2 on UKEuropean Economic Area debit transactions and 0.3 on credit transactions. A lasting cap would then be imposed once further analysis is carried out.

A spokesperson for Visa said the company strongly disputed the findings of the PSR39;s interim report and said the proposed remedies were not…