On top of the price, consumers or merchants are unwittingly paying another fee due to their transaction going through expensive international payment networks.
“The fee gouging is harmful to businesses, and the banks should be doing much more to educate their customers, give them options and save money for everyone,” Council of Small Business Organisation Australia (COSBOA) CEO Peter Strong said.
While the retailers pay these fees up-front, the consumers are often the ones left with the bill as they either cop a surcharge at the point of payment or have higher retail prices with the merchant passing on costs.
In the countdown to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Review of Retail Payments Regulation, four of Australia’s retail associations are pushing for lower fees through a system called least cost routing (LCR).
Least cost routing, or “tap and save” as its also referred to, is where merchants choose to route a debit card transaction to the lowest-cost network for that transaction.
Sometimes this might be the international networks, but more often it will be EFTPOS, the local Australian network, the submission noted.
The CEO of the Australian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA), Mark McKenzie, said banks needed to be more transparent with their fee structures.
“Payments and fees are a complicated business, and many smaller retailers struggle to understand the true nature of the costs they’re expected to pay,” Mr McKenzie said.
In a recently released issues paper regarding its Review of Retail Payments Regulation, the Reserve Bank of Australia said: “For most merchants, payments by EFTPOS can be significantly cheaper for them to accept than payments via the international schemes.”
It also stated: “None of the major banks have taken advantage of the ability to implement LCR ‘in the background’ as a way to offer improved pricing for smaller and medium-sized merchants on simple merchant plans.”
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