Germany-based payment provider AirPlus International's
adjusted earnings before interest and taxes decreased 30.5 percent to €20.2 million ($22.4 million) year over year for the
first half of 2016. The decrease owed to lower interchange fees, according to
Lufthansa, which owns AirPlus. Before adjustments, earnings before interest and
taxes increased 93.1 percent, thanks to "the disposal of equity investments."
In December 2015, the European Union capped interchange fees
for certain credit card types at 0.3 percent. The regulation excluded
company-pay corporate cards but left to interpretation at the country level whether
the cap would apply to individual-pay corporate cards.
AirPlus acted on the broad interpretation in Germany. The
card company announced
last year that it would impose a transaction fee plus an annual negotiable fee on
individual-pay cards to make up the interchange shortfall. But those fees did
not go into effect until April of this year, according to Lufthansa, after AirPlus
rolled out the Travel Expense Card in its home country.
In the meantime, U.K. regulators announced in
April that the interchange fee cap would apply to individual-pay corporate
cards there, too. AirPlus
told BTN in April that it plans
to introduce the Travel Expense Card in that market sometime this year.