Hi Doug
As a consumer my initial reaction was also - this is a good thing.

There are a couple of aspects Ive always pondered - that basically such charges, along with bank charges are ones that should not be passed on individually as they are just the cost of doing business, like rent and rates etc, albeit pricing strategy should reflect covering such costs of course. But I do see that the interchange fees by the likes of the Mastercard and Visa businesses have dominated the landscape and are effectively a monopoly from which businesses cannot escape for the use of their products.

I dont think the advent of supposedly capping such interchange fees has helped - or its not something I have seen at the small business end of the scale. Besides the higher fees for credit cards was, as well as interchange, supposedly to cover the potential and actual chargeback position given the guarantees provided/ability for cardholders to enter disputes easily, yet this guarantee has since been extended by the likes of Visa via their debit card product and I dont recall seeing an upswing in charges made for use of debit cards.

I do of course see the impact on some of the smaller retailers/businesses where such may hit hard. High end retailers tend to accept the fees as part of doing business, but are hammered by the likes of Mastercard and worse still Amex. I know of one high end dealer who will just accept it to retain turnover whilst the other has blocked the use of Amex but continues to take credit card payments. But some of mid range dealers eg smaller second hand car dealers have to make a decision as to whether to take the hit or potentially advertise the fact they do not take credit cards, only debit cards. The latter can harm their business, but the former can cost them dearly even though the chances of someone wanting to pay via credit card is a hit and miss affair and may only cover a relatively small percentage of deals.

I have also seen some scary things of late in the motor industry where main dealers are selling second hand vehicles and taking a debit card fee that is then not detailed on an invoice or indeed included but without the relevant VAT being charged. So I will be glad to see that stamped out. That said I expect such big company dealers and the likes of holiday companies and maybe even the online traders just continuing to include such fees but called something else. Payments by such methods is already the cheapest form of processing payments short of a bog standard bank transfer and online there is no other choice, so a lot of these etailers have been making hay whilst the sun was shining.

A bit rambly tonight - I need my lunch (yes a bit late!)

Artois wrote:

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 Hi Joanne

I did see a bit about this earlier and just thought at least my Take Aways will be cheaper,

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Hi Doug

If you're talking Just Eat or Hungry House then it's them, not the takeaway, who impose the charge, as well as charging the takeaway a hefty premium.

 

Hi Joanne

Agree with your sentiments regarding high value transactions, and no doubt they may have to increase prices to account for the loss on the transaction.  That said, when I last worked in retail, the card fee was 1.5% but the firm I worked for charged 3% on cc transactions, so a small profit on the transaction was made anyway.   The biggest culprits though are airlines and travel agents that impose ridiculous card fees, so it'll be good to see the back of them.  They can't call it something else, unless they apply a surcharge across the board, otherwise it's still a surcharge on card transactions.

I'm reminded of that time in retail, the company I worked for were with Streamline, and part of the terms and conditions was we weren't allowed to charge a fee for debit cards, which we didn't anyway.  I was shocked one day after the firm got a franking machine, and the leading brand wanted to charge a 2.5% fee for topping up the credit, even though we were topping up with a debit card. I protested quite strongly because the most it would have cost them was 17p.  I even complained to streamline when I found out they were with streamline too, and it got swept under the carpet.