Smith’s Food and Drug Stores will allow customers to use Visa credit cards again immediately, according to multiple reports.
“Kroger now accepts Visa credit cards at all our family of stores including Smith’s and Foods Co.,” said Aubriana Martindale, Smith’s Food & Drug corporate affairs manager, according to KSL.com.
Martindale did not clarify why the company decided to add back the Visa credit card option. A separate report from Supermarket News suggested there was no reason given for the reversal of a decision that was made seven months ago.
In March, Smith’s banned Visa credit cards, citing excessive fee charges as the reason, as the Deseret News reported. Smith’s said that Visa imposes higher interchange and network fees on retailers, which drives up food prices for customers. A spokesperson told the Deseret News at the time that the fees were the highest of any credit cards accepted at the store.
“Our commitment is to our customers to provide quality products at low costs,” said Aubriana Martindale, division corporate affairs manager for Smith’s Food & Drug, at the time of the decision. “To do that means controlling costs, and we’re not able to do that with the excessive fees that Visa has charged.”