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.
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.
well it sounds like visa’s trying to force small businesses to take the hit to their bottom line instead. and visa’s got all the leverage–they’ll get whatever they demand
Yeah that’s what I’m afraid of.