Using plastic to make payments abroad will likely become more complicated after the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, a prospect that hurts U.S. companies issuing credit cards and processing payments.
The details of Great Britain’s departure, including what trade agreements it might retain with the 27 countries remaining in the European Union, may take years to work out. Analysts have cautioned, however, that the move might cost finance companies that based their European operations in London the so-called passporting privileges that let firms with a license in one member country conduct business in all of them.
