The BA Amex card is issued by AMEX directly (ie AMEX is both the card issuer and the payment scheme). As such, this type of arrangement falls outside of the EU interchange regulations and therefore the interchange fees paid by merchants remain considerably higher than for comparable transactions made on a typical VISA/MasterCard credit card product issued by a 3rd party. This protection from the EU interchange rules helps AMEX to be able to continue to offer the product with attractive terms whilst keeping it commercially viable.