Morocco's Competition Council accuses internet payment providers of 'abusive' over-billing

Morocco’s Competition Council (CC) has reported “abusive” practices by some online payment operators, warning of the extra cost that the services apply and making its stance clear on the matter.

The council, an independent institution tasked with ensuring transparency and fairness in economic relations, specifically through the analysis and regulation of competition on the markets, the control of anti-competitive practices, unfair commercial practices, and operations of economic concentration and monopoly, addressed the issue in a statement released on Tuesday.

The CC has noted that some businesses that operate in various economic sectors and use online payment services for their invoices via the Internet make their customers pay for this service in addition to the invoice that needs to be paid, despite the fact that they clearly profit from it by drastically lowering their operating and investment costs associated with the collection of these invoices.

This is a practice “not economically justified”, insists the CC, which denounces a use likely to “distort the very principle of competition on the markets concerned, by providing undue advantages to some operators, allowing them to strengthen their positions on the said markets and this, to the detriment of consumers.

The CC warns that this practice also slows or even prevents the growth of the digitalization of the economy and uses it in a way that is against Morocco’s National Strategy for the Development of Digital.

In this sense, the council called on the companies concerned to “review their practices in this area.

Ahmed Rahhou, president of the Council, stated that “Online transaction fees are an abusive and economically unjustified practice in a context where the law protecting consumer rights and the rules of free competition are at stake.”

In an interview with L’Economist, he explained that the Council wanted to draw attention to these abusive practices in the hope that the companies concerned will rectify the situation.

“If they don’t, we will take appropriate measures,” said Rahhou.

The Competition Council has restricted itself to issuing a general comment for now, without singling out any individual company.

Rahhou argued that the service provider or intermediary should be responsible for paying for the online payment service rather than the other way around, calling this arrangement “inadmissible” and citing the example of clever businesses that provide discounts to entice clients to pay their bills online.