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Commerce Commission cashes in on retail payments work as telco and ticketing firm agree to review surcharges

Business / news
Commerce Commission cashes in on retail payments work as telco and ticketing firm agree to review surcharges

The Commerce Commission isn’t ruling out regulation to bring down surcharges for retail payments as it chalks up a couple of wins, with 2degrees, Ticketek and councils among those successfully nudged by the competition watchdog to reduce surcharges.

The Retail Payment System Act 2022 requires the Commerce Commission to monitor and regulate the retail payment system. Surcharges are often levied for specific types of transactions, with Paywave or contactless transactions often attracting fees passed onto consumers. 

But there were concerns some merchants were doing more than passing the charge on, and in November 2022 an initial pricing standard came into effect which capped some of those domestic interchange fees. Since then, the Commerce Commission has been watching to see how the legislative change is playing out.

It said it had engaged with larger businesses it expected to have lower surcharge rates including Air New Zealand, Ticketek, and telecommunications company 2degrees.

As a result of its work, 2degrees would reduce its surcharge from 1.75% to 1% later this year, as well as some councils who were reviewing and reducing surcharges for rates bills and other services, Commerce Commission Chair John Small said.

“This is a win for consumers.”

2degrees head of public relations Quentin Reade said the company “prided ourselves on being fair and transparent, so challenged ourselves to do what we can do here to help consumers”.

“We are hopeful Kiwis see a reduction in fees as a fair and clear way for businesses to operate when faced with external bank charges.”

Ticketek told Interest.co.nz that it was in the process of revising its fees for credit card payments. 

“As we work through to confirm and reduce the final rate, the revised fee will be built into future events and will be visible to the customer as the event goes on sale.”

Ticketmaster NZ said it was “actively engaged in working to reduce or eliminate its payment processing fee”.

The Commission published a letter it had sent to a group of 17 businesses on August 3 updating on its progress in trying to get surcharges dropped.

It said it had sent the merchants initial letters in March which requested “they review their surcharging practices to bring them into line with our expectations and that we were seeking their feedback”.

In contrast with 2degrees, One New Zealand – formerly Vodafone – had refused the Commission’s overtures to drop its surcharges. The company told the Commission, “at present it is comfortable with its current surcharging practices although it has indicated it intends to regularly review its surcharging practices”.

One NZ currently charges a 2% “convenience fee” for any one-off credit or debit card payment.

Among the 17 the Commission wrote to along with Air New Zealand, which was criticised for raising surcharges in 2020, was a number of councils including Auckland Council which was charging 1.75% for some forms of payments.

Auckland Council had agreed to drop its “in-person weighted average surcharge for credit and contactless debit to 0.67% from 1.75% with an implementation date of late July 2023” as a result of the Commission’s work.

A number of other councils had also committed to dropping payment surcharges including Hutt City Council and the New Plymouth District Council.

Wellington City Council appeared to be an outlier for councils, it had not committed yet to dropping payment surcharges.

The Commission’s letter said it may regulate payment surcharges and was “yet to determine whether regulation in this area is necessary and are currently using an engagement strategy that allows us to learn whilst encouraging payment service providers and merchants to do the right thing by their respective customers”. 

It said it was monitoring complaints on excessive surcharging and would engage with merchants as necessary. 

The Commerce Commission had published guidelines for both merchants and consumers about surcharging since the 2022 law change.

In May, Small said consumers had options to avoid retail payment surcharges.

“In most cases of in-person card payments, you have the option of inserting or swiping your debit or Eftpos card, rather than using the contactless function, and this should not incur a fee."

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23 Comments

The Commerce Commission had published guidelines for both merchants and consumers about surcharging since the 2022 law change

Would you by any chance have a link please Rebecca?  We're looking at introducing a surcharge at present for my business.

Thank you.

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Awesome, thanks a lot Gareth, much appreciated !

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Are you adding a surcharge for your motel users to use the toilets Yvil?

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All the companies in question need to do is raise prices to include the network charge, and no surcharge.

I mean, have you seen the delivery 'surcharge' Dominoes has added? If it actually went to the driver we wouldn't have batted an eye - but no, it goes to the franchise owner. If it's not profitable without such shenanigans, put the prices up and don't pretend you're on-charging some special cost other businesses don't have!

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Chaos, I'm sorry but you don't understand what you're talking about.  

Firstly, the topic is not a "delivery surcharge", it's about Eftpos terminal surcharges.

Secondly, putting prices up would penalise people who pay cash or via debit card, as they would have to pay more.

Thirdly, the businesses do get charged (between 1.33% and 2.63%) for taking payments via credit cards, and it's these costs that the businesses want to pass onto the customers.  The customers, then get rewarded for paying by credit cards, with Flyby points or Cashback or Hotpoints other rewards.

 

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Kind of like the pay on time 'discount' on power bills that is no longer.

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Its the companies that only allow online payments and then charge a significant surcharge that are the problem. Air NZ and Ticketek are the two that come to mind. If you can't possibly buy the product for the advertised price then that has to be false advertising (and sorry Air NZ the Poly backdoor does not count)

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Yvil, I was giving an example of a business separating legitimate business costs for marketing purposes.

And debit card incurs the same transaction fees as credit (at least from my suppliers) - unless that is changing?

As a consumer, I don't care what individual business transactions cost my supplier - perhaps I should ask the next motel I stay at for an itemised list of all the myriad transactions (staff, linen, power, etc) that my stay incurred? No, that would be ridiculous, and I consider the breaking out of a single line item (payment infrastructure costs) equally ridiculous. The dominoes additional 'surcharge' just happens to take the cake, and is downright egregious.

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"And debit card incurs the same transaction fees as credit"

Well, no it doesn't and that's the point Chaos.  When you, the customer, pays for something at a shop by debit card, the bank does NOT charge the shop, and therefore the shop does NOT charge you.  If you pay by credit card, the bank DOES charge the shop, so the shop charges you, and you get some loyalty back from the bank in the form of a bonus scheme.

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Have to admit, I haven't selected 'CRD' when using my debit card in a shop - because it also has CHQ and SAV linked to EFTPOS.

But I know when I use that same debit card for paying, say, 2 degrees, online, I get charged the credit processing fee. Meridian too. Weirdly, mostly NZ suppliers - I don't recall seeing on an overseas payment (just checked a couple to make sure).

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Yeah, if you insert your debit card and use the credit option, there's no charge, but if you paywave it, then there is.  So I guess the online transaction is the equivalent of paywave.

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No fees on EFT/POS is charged by banks.  So they have connived around to get rid of sad EFT/POS for years now.

Stuff like promoting Paywave, but it 's only on credit card platform.  So banks no get fees when they once did not.

Which is why many retailers refuse Paywave.

Commerce Commission need to wake up.  But are probably scared of the banks.

Fees is another rason for the campaign to get rid of cash.  Huge income stream opens up for banks.

But the Commerce Commission won't see it.  It will fiddle at the edges.

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I just wonder much resources they have, as they have a massive job to do. 

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So I have just setup a "surcharge" on our Eftpos terminal, to recoup the commission we pay to the bank, they told me they charge us a monthly fee for this facility… oh the irony !

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Indeed.

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Never heard of that. They charge for paywave etc. You pay a monthly fee to paymark that covers your sim and connection and merchant fees to your bank on any credit transactions. The bank also charges a minimum monthly merchant fee if you have no credit card transactions. 

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If interest.co  charged per comment here,  then...

 

Would the quality rise or the comments be longer?

 

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We may find out soon who has been swimming naked on Interest.

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Yesterday I checked one of my receipts and noticed that the small supermarket I had used had charged a surcharge on my credit card payment.  I don't recall seeing an sign about it and the cashier didn't tell me there was a surcharge. I understand the commerce commssion has that requirement, but not sure if it is only a guideline or a legal requirement which they could get fined for. 

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All the eftpos terminals give you a prompt with the fee if one is about to be charged. You have to press yes or no to accept or decline. You must have pressed yes and been away with the fairies. 

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I didn't notice any as I used paywave and the cashier was holding the terminal. I will have to check next time. 

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This is a simple transfer of revenues from banks to merchants. Poor consumers are unlikely to experience any meaningful savings. Just by targeting a handful of merchants is not going to work. What about the business credit cards, where  banks are still earning excessive interchange? What about the takeaways and dairy shops which are still charging over 100bps for scheme payments?

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