Oct 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is probing Visa Inc’s (V.N) relationships with large fintech companies as part of its antitrust investigation of the card giant, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Antitrust investigators are looking into the financial incentives that Visa gave Square Inc (SQ.N), Stripe Inc and Paypal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O), the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Visa, which reported its quarterly results on Tuesday, declined to comment.

The company said earlier in March the Justice Department was looking at its debit practices after reports that the United States was investigating whether Visa uses anti-competitive practices in the debit-card market. read more

The Justice Department had previously investigated the credit card payments industry but settled with Visa and Mastercard Inc (MA.N) in 2010 when they agreed to allow merchants to offer consumers incentives to use a low-cost credit card.

Reporting by Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni

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