The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), an antimonopoly watchdog agency, has reached an administrative agreement with Visa regarding card authorization service options available to merchant acquirers in the country. Under a voluntary plan, Visa will not leverage its position in the market to insist that acquirers use its authorization service to connect with issuers for credit card transactions. Visa will report on implementation of its practices for five years to the JFTC. No penalties are tied to the agreement. A probe of Visa’s practices began after the company implemented new prici...