BRUSSELS, July 5 (Reuters) - Visa and Mastercard ( MA )

will extend caps on tourist card fees agreed five years

ago with EU antitrust regulators by another five years to 2029,

the European Commission said on Friday.

Visa, the world's largest payments network operator, and its

closest rival Mastercard ( MA ), in 2019 agreed to a 0.2% fee cap on

non-EU debit card payments carried out in shops and a 0.3% fee

limit on credit card payments to settle an EU antitrust

investigation and avoid hefty fines.

The fee caps are due to end in November this year. The move

followed a long-running investigation by the EU competition

enforcer triggered by a 1997 complaint by business lobby

EuroCommerce.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU antitrust

watchdog, said the two companies volunteered to continue the fee

caps beyond 2024.

"Inter-regional interchange fees for debit and credit card

transactions under these schemes will remain capped for another

5 years until November 2029," it said in a statement.

"For card present (offline) transactions, the fees will

remain capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

For card not present (online) transactions, the caps will remain

1.15% for debit cards and 1.5% for credit cards," it said.

Visa and Mastercard ( MA ) set and charge interchange fees, also

known as swipe fees, to merchants which accept their debit and

credit cards. The charges generate profits for bank and other

card issuers.

The EU enforcer however warned that it would start an

investigation if it finds concrete evidence showing that the

current caps would not be appropriate anymore.