The current Act prohibits credit card merchants from refusing credit card transactions or treating credit card holders unfairly for making a credit card transaction. This requirement for compulsory acceptance of credit cards prohibits discrimination between different payment methods such as credit cards or cash.

However, some warehouse-type supermarkets and other major distributors enter into an exclusive merchant agreement with a single credit card company instead of signing contracts with multiple card companies. As a result, consumers that use such major distributors, etc., are continuously inconvenienced as they have no choice but to use the credit card of the specific company selected by the merchant.

Critics argue that large merchants entering into merchant agreements with a single credit card company ultimately inconvenience consumers and result in the formation of cartels between specific credit card companies and merchants that have entered into an exclusive agreement.

Accordingly, the Amendment adds to the scope of matters to be observed by credit card merchants the prohibition against causing inconvenience to consumers by entering into a merchant agreement with only a single credit card company (Article 19, paragraph 5, subparagraph 6 newly inserted).

No credit card merchant shall engage in an act referred to in any of the following subparagraphs; provided that subparagraphs 1, 4 and 5 shall not apply to an agency for settlements, while subparagraphs 3 and 5 (limited to practices of acting as an agent under subparagraph 5-2 of Article 2) shall not apply to payment collection merchants (Article 19, paragraph 5):
6. Inconveniencing consumers by entering into a merchant agreement with only a single credit card company.