The fees cost shoppers hundreds of millions of dollars every year, so why do they even exist in the first place, and what is actually going to change?
This is what you need to know.
What are card surcharges and why do they exist?
Card surcharges are a small fee – typically somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent – added to a purchase paid for using credit or debit.
They exist because it isn’t free for businesses to accept payments using those methods.
Providers like Visa, Mastercard, and Square charge vendors a fee.
Under Australian consumer law, businesses are allowed to apply a surcharge to cover the cost of processing payme(…)
Have other countries done something similar?
Yes. Both the United Kingdom and European Union have banned card surcharges, as has Malaysia.
Debit card surcharges are also illegal in the United States and Canada, although fees for credit card payments are allowed.