2w ago

Visa calls for ban on surcharges

www.rnz.co.nz

Credit card company Visa is calling for a ban on the surcharge fee some merchants charge card-paying consumers at the point of sale.
The Commerce Commission was undertaking a review of card charges, and considering cutting the regulated interchange fee card companies can charge banks by as much as 75 percent, for example.
Card interchange fees were in turn passed on by banks to merchants at whatever rate the merchant can negotiate, meaning that some pay much more than others.

38 comments

Alternate title: "Visa, who has control over the contracts they have with banks to the point that our biggest bank ANZ doesn't offer Mastercard as an option, complains that their gouging of consumers for using paywave has led to merchants passing on the cost if customers want to use that method, which is encouraging people to use EFTPOS which doesn't charge for transactions. Visa proposes to go back to the gouging thing."
Interestingly with the popularity of surcharges, I notice way more places accepting credit cards (if you're willing to pay the fee).
- Alternate, alternate headline.
  EFTPOS still refuses to pull head out of own arse, won't offer competition to price gouging Visa. Even though consumers would flock to their service in a heartbeat.
  
  Online EFTPOS is now a thing. A small number of places but it's pretty new.
  Is paywave the only thing they don't have feature parity on? Other than overseas stuff, which will be a lot trickier to do.
- it's not just about the free money they're getting from people using cards, it's also the customer shopping data points they collect. that information used to cost billions of moneys to market researchers--now you're handing it over, also for free
  
  Maybe they could try a pricing model that competes with EFTPOS then? Especially if they are getting valuable data points.
- I use eftpos in Australia because Aldi chargers a 0.5% credit/debit card surcharge.

So do I have this right:
EFTPOS is free to merchants and customers
VISA charges a fee for their services
Merchants pass the VISA fee on to their customers
VISA wants the fee removed by law
Merchants will be forced to raise prices to compensate
Customers using EFTPOS will end up paying part of the VISA fee ?
- EFTPOS is free to merchants and customers
  Not quite, but the EFTPOS pricing model is different. No interchange fees. It used to be there were no transaction fees at all, you paid per terminal (and it wasn't much, like $20 a month) so long as you had internet access, but with more options like mobile phone connected stuff or wireless terminals it seems the pricing is a little more complicated. Still clearly a tiny fraction of the 2% or more of the price that you might see on Visa charges.
  Here's the EFTPOS NZ pricing: https://eftpos.co.nz/online-payments/pricing
  But the rest, yeah pretty much.
  
  So 20c per transaction, above $10 the fee is below the 2%.
  But if you use a virtual terminal, there is no fee....so only the fixed $10+gst/month.

Come on Visa, that's the sort of favour you're supposed to quietly lobby governments for behind closed doors, you really shouldn't let it get out in public like this.
- Must not have bribed enough, government turned them down, now they are trying to get public support.

Visa can shove off, if they don't like retailers charging transaction fees, they should charge less for their services.

Charging that fee is pure profit for the merchant. Sure VISA charges fees (and they probably should be made more transparent). However before you say those should be passed on you need to calculate the costs of the alternatives. How much does it cost to count and recount cash - 30 years ago I managed a fast food joint and just my time balancing all the tills cost more than 1% of our gross income. Add in the cashiers (who didn't make much less than me in the worst case and some of the long timers made more than me) and you are getting close to VISA's fees. Now add in the cost of the register, security systems, and whatever was lost from theft of cash (I never experienced a robbery, but I did see some clerks steeling money from their till in ways I couldn't prove it was them).
Because of the costs of cash I find Visa's fees at least close to reasonable.
- But is that a fair comparison? Merchants aren't picking between Visa and cash, they are comparing Visa and EFTPOS.
  It used to be that most places had EFTPOS and a smaller number had credit. Now it seems everyone has credit, but with a surcharge. I suspect if Visa gets their way they will be available at fewer places again.
  
  Is it still the case in NZ that you have to accept cash as payment as well? If so, even if you have VISA as well you'd still have some overhead for balancing up the till etc anyway.
- As a merchant, that's a decision you're free to make as you see fit.
  
  fair enough but don't be surprised when visa makes the choice to cut you off.

Hey I have an idea. Why don't we invite some competition to the marketplace. Maybe Alipay or Wechat. Even better why don't we start using premined crypto coins. Even better why doesn't the government mint it's own premined crypto and set up some servers to handle the transactions.
The mere threat of any of the above should get Visa to back off.
- Fuck off with the crypto.
  
  Yeah. Bro had me until the crypto shill.
  
  It's just technology. It's just a kind of a database. There is no reason the government can't create it's own currency and run it's own transaction servers. It's all open source so it could literally be done in a week if we really want to.

38 comments