Latest / Best of Business / Jessica Walker: Consumer NZ Acting Head of Research and Advocacy on the growing calls to ban card payment surcharges

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Jessica Walker: Consumer NZ Acting Head of Research and Advocacy on the growing calls to ban card payment surcharges · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Cryan Bridge after four. Consumer in Z nine ten ninety
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  Speaker 2: two is a number to text. By the way, Consumer
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  Speaker 2: in Z wants the Commerce Commission to stop messing around
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  Speaker 2: and just ban card payment surcharges. They must annoy you
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  Speaker 2: when you go shopping. Card payment surcharges are those annoying
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  Speaker 2: extra payments that you have to make at the counter
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  Speaker 2: when you're paying for something with your phone or with
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  Speaker 2: a contactless card. Now, the Commerce Commission is considering making
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  Speaker 2: changes in this space, but they haven't said anything yet
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  Speaker 2: about that, right band. Jessica Walker is with Consumer and
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  Speaker 2: Edge is with me this afternoon. Hi Jessica, Hi there.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned that you guys have got hundreds of complaints.
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  Speaker 2: What are people saying? What's wrong?
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  Speaker 3: So most of the complaints we're getting are about just
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  Speaker 3: the percentage of the surcharge. Our advice is anything above
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  Speaker 3: two percent is excessive. And some of the complaints we're
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  Speaker 3: getting are kind of in the twenty percent mark. So
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  Speaker 3: there are some solute homdingers out there.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty percent how many people have been charged twenty percent.
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  Speaker 3: So these tend to be you know, when you go
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  Speaker 3: to park your car and you have to pay at
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  Speaker 3: the meter and you've got no choice but to pay
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  Speaker 3: by card, and it's a flat fee that can be
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  Speaker 3: up to twenty percent. We also get a lot of
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  Speaker 3: complaints about airline charges, so they tend to be flat fees. Also,
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  Speaker 3: taxis have got a bit of a reputation here as well,
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  Speaker 3: so some of these, they're definitely groups of them where
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  Speaker 3: you can be really stung with these excessively high sur charges.
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  Speaker 2: At the moment, the rules, well they're just guidelines, aren't they,
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  Speaker 2: So you can pretty much do whatever you want. It's
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  Speaker 2: the wild wizt.
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  Speaker 3: So the guidelines say that they should not be excessive,
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  Speaker 3: that they should be transparent, and that there should be
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  Speaker 3: a way to avoid them. But we are hearing that
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  Speaker 3: that's not always the case, and so yeah, that's the problem.
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  Speaker 3: But you're absolutely right, because there's guidelines, there's really nothing
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  Speaker 3: to stop stop businesses retailers from behaving like this.
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  Speaker 2: So the Commerce Commission wants to lower the interchange fees,
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  Speaker 2: but you want them just banned outright? Is that going
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  Speaker 2: to be on fear? I mean, if you're a deary
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  Speaker 2: owner and you're getting charged a fee from a visa
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  Speaker 2: or from a bank or whatever you want to pass
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  Speaker 2: it on.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So the interchange fees and the surcharges are quite separate.
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  Speaker 3: So the interchange fees is what's being consulted on right now.
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  Speaker 3: So that's the payments that their retailers are incurring. So
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  Speaker 3: this is their payment providing fee, and then the surg
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  Speaker 3: charges is what they're able to pass on. So yes,
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  Speaker 3: you're right, So what they're consulting on now is lowering
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  Speaker 3: these interchange fees, which should in theory then mean lower
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  Speaker 3: fees to consumers. But what we're saying is we don't
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  Speaker 3: think that is necessarily going to happen. In the past.
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  Speaker 3: We haven't seen that happen, so we're wondering why this
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  Speaker 3: would be any different. So what we're calling for is
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  Speaker 3: for the Commerce Commission to make this a priority and
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  Speaker 3: at least consider putting surcharge bands on the table.
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  Speaker 2: So you want so how would this work? So the
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  Speaker 2: banks or the cards charge the fee to the dairy
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  Speaker 2: owners the retailers, and they charge us surcharge and you're
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  Speaker 2: wanting the surcharge band, but would that not then also
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  Speaker 2: leave the retailer picking up the tab.
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  Speaker 3: Yees. So what's happening now, So the consultation on the
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  Speaker 3: interchange fee, so they're looking to lower that and we
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  Speaker 3: support that. And what that would mean is the fees
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  Speaker 3: to retailers would be lower lower, but not nothing lower,
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  Speaker 3: but not nothing exactly. So yes, it would mean that
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  Speaker 3: they would be incurring more costs. And yeah, we could
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  Speaker 3: see then that it is costing consumers more. But in
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  Speaker 3: the minute, we're saying that, you know, people paying on
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  Speaker 3: debit cards are subsidizing some credit card payments because they're
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  Speaker 3: more expensive, and generally there's just one flat fee, So
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  Speaker 3: we don't think it would make things worse. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: we think it would make things better because it would
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  Speaker 3: just be clearer.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting. Jessica, thank you for They'rejisco Walker, who's with Consumer
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  Speaker 2: and Z.
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