Hadley Malcolm

USA TODAY

Walmart Canada is breaking up with Visa over high transaction fees.

The company's Canada division will no longer accept Visa cards because the fees Visa charges to accept its branded cards are "unacceptably high," Walmart Canada said in a statement over the weekend.

Walmart said the fees conflict with its mission of saving customers money and subsequently keeping business costs low. The change will start taking place July 18 and rolled out in phases to its more than 400 stores across Canada.

Walmart Canada said it pays more than $100 million in fees every year to accept credit cards, though it didn't break out how much of that goes to Visa. Stores will still accept MasterCard, Discover and American Express.

Visa said the decision will negatively affect Walmart shoppers in Canada.

"Walmart made this business decision despite Visa offering one of the lowest rates available to any merchant in the country," said spokeswoman Connie Kim. "We are disappointed that Walmart chose to put their own financial interests ahead of their own consumers’ choice."

Retailers and card companies have long been in battle over so-called swipe fees, the fee companies pay to banks in order to run transactions. Those fees are set by card companies. In 2011, the fee for debit card transactions was capped at 21 cents in the U.S., but the same flat fee doesn't apply to credit cards.

Walmart spokeswoman Jo Warner said the change does not extend to U.S. stores.