In the Competition Board (Board) meeting of 07.04.2022, an examination was launched into the Cooperation Agreements for the World Credit Card Program, which was previously granted exemption with various decisions of the Competition Board, in order to determine if the individual exemption should be withdrawn under Article 13 of the Act no 4054 on the Protection of Competition.

The examination conducted examined the restrictions placed on the member banks of the World Program concerning the provision of services to merchants in the World Program of each other, restrictions concerning the participation of the banks in the World Program in other joint card programs, and limitations on the advertisement, promotion, campaign member banks of the World Program could conduct under the program as on their terms of service.

The decision dated 09.05.2025 and numbered 25-18/421-197, taken as a result of the examination, rules that the provisions in the World Credit Card Program Cooperation Agreements prohibiting World banks from providing services to the merchants in each other's World Programs, from participating in another joint brand card programs, and from engaging in advertisement and promotion activities that directly target other member banks of the program could benefit from individual exemption.

However, it also finds that the agreements could not benefit from individual exemption as a whole, on the grounds that some of the provisions in the World Credit Card Program Cooperation Agreements restricted competition more than necessary under Article 5.1(d) of the Act no 4054.

Accordingly, it is decided the following conditions must be fulfilled for the relevant agreements to receive individual exemption:

• The scope of the prohibition on offering bids for providing services under the World Program to merchants already in a World merchant relationship with another bank must be narrowed down to exclude negotiations with merchants who wish to receive bids in order to change their service providers,
• The “waiting periods” for other banks to start providing services under the World Program to those merchants whose World merchant relationship has expired must be eliminated,
• The freedom of the member banks of the World Program to determine their card and annual membership fees as well as their contractual rates of interests for credit cards must not be restricted, and
• Card switching periods in case of leaving the World Program must be at least 9 months,

Within this framework, it is decided that that action would be taken under the relevant Act on the parties to the agreement unless the agreements found to be ineligible to benefit from individual exemption in their current version are amended and notified to the Competition Authority within 9 months, and relevant agreements and the cooperation under the World Program are terminated within the same period.