Regulatory Concerns a Reason to Buy American Express Instead of Visa or Mastercard

5/21 - "...current legislation (could) potentially result in the renegotiation of fees that merchants pay issuing banks, known as the interchange fee. While I’d be far out of line to assess the odds that the bill passes, it’s a worthwhile example to illustrate why American Express is the much better company and – as we’ll see later when looking at valuation – investment."

"Visa and MasterCard...are very much a duopoly in the credit card market, with roughly 80% of the cards in force being one of those two brands. While there are lawsuits by merchants alleging antitrust violations, none have gone to trial as of yet, although a successful verdict against Visa wouldn’t be the first time that company has been hit for anti-competitive practices – Visa was forced to settle a multibillion dollar lawsuit brought by American Express alleging Visa had a long history of prev...