PSR scheme fee remedies: what they mean for what you pay
The UK Payment Systems Regulator has directed Visa and Mastercard to meet pricing governance requirements from November 2026 and, from July 2027, to give acquirers the fee logic needed to reconcile billed scheme fees to the transactions behind them. Acquirers and PSPs are affected first, and issuers and merchants indirectly.
What changed?
In July 2026 the PSR published its final decision, PS26/1, on remedies from its market review of card scheme and processing fees. It sets two groups of requirements on Visa and Mastercard: pricing governance, which applies from November 2026, and a remedy the PSR calls ITC, which requires the schemes to provide the fee logic acquirers need to reconcile invoices to transactions from July 2027 (PSR PS26/1, July 2026).
The decision follows the PSR's March 2025 final report, which found that core scheme and processing fees paid by acquirers rose by more than 25% in real terms between 2017 and 2023, costing UK businesses at least £170m a year (PSR final report, March 2025). In PS26/1 the PSR concluded that the schemes "do not give acquirers sufficiently clear and detailed information about their fees", and that acquirers struggle to get timely answers when they ask.
Who does it affect?
The directions bind Visa and Mastercard and are written for the acquirers who pay their scheme and processing fees. PSPs and payment facilitators feel them through their acquirer or directly where they are scheme members. Merchants on interchange++ pricing see the effect in the scheme fees passed through to them.
Issuers pay scheme fees as well, but PS26/1 addresses the fees charged to acquirers. An issuer should read the decision itself to see whether any part reaches its own invoices. Where the PSR's work sits is also changing: the government introduced legislation in May 2026 to fold the PSR's functions into the FCA (Norton Rose Fulbright).
What are the dates?
Two dates matter for anyone paying UK scheme fees: November 2026, when pricing governance applies, and July 2027, when fee logic for reconciliation must be available to acquirers. The table puts them alongside the earlier steps in the PSR's review and the change to the regulator itself.
| Date | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| March 2025 | PSR final report on card scheme and processing fees | PSR |
| May 2026 | Legislation introduced to fold PSR functions into the FCA | Norton Rose Fulbright |
| July 2026 | PS26/1 final decision and directions published | PSR PS26/1 |
| November 2026 | Pricing governance requirements apply to Visa and Mastercard | PSR PS26/1 |
| July 2027 | Schemes must provide the fee logic to reconcile billed fees to originating transactions | PSR PS26/1 |
What does "fee logic" mean for reconciliation?
Fee logic is the set of rules that turns a transaction into a scheme fee: which fee applies, at what rate, and on what basis. Today many scheme fees reach acquirers as aggregate invoice lines, some one to two months in arrears (Adyen help), so an acquirer can see what it was charged but not how the charge was built.
With the logic in hand, an acquirer can recalculate each fee from its own transaction data and compare the result with the invoice, line by line. A query to the scheme can then carry the expected amount, the billed amount and the transactions behind both. It also means the acquirer needs somewhere to run that recalculation every month, with transaction data mapped to the fields the fee logic uses. The PSR's decision sets the obligation on the schemes; the work of using the logic falls to the acquirer.
What should you check now?
Acquirers and PSPs can use the months before July 2027 to find out how far their scheme invoices can be reconciled today, and what data they will need when fee logic arrives. The checks below need no new tools, and each one tells you something about your readiness.
- List every scheme fee line on the last three invoices and mark which ones you can already recalculate from your own data.
- For the lines you cannot recalculate, note what is missing: the rate, the basis, the transaction fields, or the activity month.
- Confirm your transaction data carries the attributes scheme fees usually depend on, such as card product, region and channel.
- Record scheme fee change notices you receive from November 2026 against their effective dates, and check the first invoice after each one.
- Check that scheme fees you pass on to merchants match the fees you paid for the same transactions.
- Read PS26/1 itself for the detail of the pricing governance requirements, which this page summarises only by date.
How FeeVerify fits
FeeVerify already does the recalculation that fee logic makes possible, using the scheme schedules and processing agreements you hold today. It builds a rulebook from those documents, recalculates every transaction against it, and traces each difference to the clause or schedule entry it breaks. Each rule carries a confidence grade, and a named reviewer signs off every material finding.
When the schemes provide fee logic from July 2027, it becomes another source for the same rulebook, and with optional continuous assurance the check runs again on each new month of data. The scheme fee errors guide explains what the check finds, and the UK market page covers the other rules that affect UK costs.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026 against the sources below. We review this page when the PSR or FCA publishes changes to the directions.
Sources: PSR PS26/1, July 2026; PSR final report, March 2025; Norton Rose Fulbright on the PSR and FCA, May 2026; Adyen help on non-transactional scheme fees.
Start with one month of your own data.
A pilot begins with the agreements that protect both sides, then your contracts and one month of settlement data, scoped with a payments specialist on the first call. The 30-day diagnostic re-costs every transaction against them and shows each variance with its clause, before any recurring fee.