Latest / The SME Stream / Andrew Bayly: Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister on New Zealand potentially scrapping bank card surcharges

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Andrew Bayly: Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister on New Zealand potentially scrapping bank card surcharges · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now, the Aussies, as I was telling you yesterday, are
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: about to get rid of some of those annoying fees
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that you get hit with when you pay by card,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and it looks like we might follow suit. The Ossie
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: government is planning to ban the surve charges for purchases
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: made by debit card. Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Bailey is with me right now.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hey Andrew, how are you going?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm very well, thank you. So are you planning to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: ban debit card surcharges?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, we we're working on I've been working with the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Commerce Commission for several months. In fact, we're a bigger
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: ahead of the Australians. We've just finished the Comms Commission's
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: just finished consultation process and it's had a lot of
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: submissions and we expect to now make an announcement the
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: next few weeks.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: How what about the credit card surve charges?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Well, the two there's two things that the Commerce Commission
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: went in consult on. There's two parts. That one is
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the enter bank fee charges and then the overall surve
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: charge aspects that when you go in and pay for
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: your coffee, you're incurring that total cost. So the focus
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: has been on both interbank charges and a surcharge the
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: total fee, because we want to make sure that you're
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: not the worst thing at the moment when you're go
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: into a shop buy coffee, you don't know what is
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the surcharge. So we want to deal with both debit
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: cards and credit cards.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, so would you ban the seurcharge with credit cards
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: as well?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: No, it's not a question of banning the total surcharge.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: There isn't a legitimate fee to some extent, it's just
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: a question what is an appropriate feed at the moment? No, yeah, yeah,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: at the moment, you know, you can be paying up
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: to two and a half percent and it's difficult for
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the retailer as well. In many cases the retailer doesn't
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: know what is an appropriate fee, which has made up
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: of a whole lot of components. But what we want
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: to make sure is that we have visibility around the
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: inter bank charge, which is the key of accounts for
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: about sixty percent of the total costs that people pay,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: and also making sure we've got a cap around the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: total search arge that people.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Where do you reckon that captured sit?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll wait and see what what the commis Commission
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: went out with they talked about an interact charge of
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: one point two percent and zero point seven percent for
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a total s but that look, let's wait until the
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Commist Commission Forstance to report. It's gonna it's going through
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: that process at the moment, but we are very committed
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to make sure KIV is not paid more then till
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: when they go to buy something, and they ought to.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So if we if we are talking about everything here right,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we're talking about going down and get your sushi, paying
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: for your flights or your yeah I don't know, yeah, yeah,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: travel agency fees. But also if you go onto the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: New Zealand websites, what you're paying there, that little search
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: charge on the credit card, that would be capped as well.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because what happened. If there's clarity around it, then
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: then the retailer or inner zine and whatever can knock
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: at what their situation is and adjusted accordingly. So it's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: it's we will cap like the end bank charge, that'll
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: be something that Commics commissill be quite clear about. But
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the total surcharge, there will be a clarity around that,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and then the retail or whoever will be in a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: position to be clear about what they should be.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: What's your time from Andrew? When are you going to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: do this?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Oh? Matter of next few weeks. Actually we were hoping
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to be able to make an announcement before then, but
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the number of submissions that the Comments Commissioner received they
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: want to take a bit more time to process.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it very very much, Andrew, thank
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you very much. Really appreciate is Andrew Bailey, Commerce and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Consumer Affairs Minister. Oh those surcharges, they don't they grind gears.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you two of my favorite ones there, New
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Zealand surcharge angry every time, briefly angry. I've got used
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to it. I just it's like a tiny little flare up,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I'm angry, and then you know, what, what can you do?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You resigned to it. The other one, the old parking one,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: you know, when they're like it's going to cost you
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: fifty cents to park your and fifty cents to use
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: your credit cud LL and then I'm over it again.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But anyway, he's going to fix it for us. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that's that's fantastic