Latest / Best of Business / Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on ACT confirming the Government's hit pause on the surcharge ban

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Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on ACT confirming the Government's hit pause on the surcharge ban · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: Good Afternoon. The government's credit card surcharge band might have
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  Speaker 2: just been given a last minute replete reprieve. It was
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  Speaker 2: declared dead this morning because ACT had pulled support for it,
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  Speaker 2: but now Labor has said it might yet support it.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like only if the banks absorb the fees.
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  Speaker 2: Carolyn Young is the CEO of Retailing ZED and with
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  Speaker 2: us Hi Carolyn Kota. Would that work? Can the banks
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  Speaker 2: be forced to absorb the fees?
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  Speaker 3: I think it's unlikely that that's going to happen, But look,
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  Speaker 3: that would be a good outcome for everyone if that
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  Speaker 3: was possible, wouldn't it because from a consumer and a
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  Speaker 3: merchant perspective, they wouldn't be having to bear those increased
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  Speaker 3: costs for the hire of technology that's been introduced through
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  Speaker 3: contact with payments.
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  Speaker 2: Why is it unlikely to happen?
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  Speaker 3: Well, because you know, if you talk to any bank,
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  Speaker 3: they're going to sit down and say to you that
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  Speaker 3: to develop, and the credit card companies they're going to
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  Speaker 3: say to you that to develop safer, more tech knowlogically
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  Speaker 3: friendly solutions for people to make payments costs. It takes
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  Speaker 3: investment and funding to be able to do that. So,
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  Speaker 3: for example, part of the reason why f POS has
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  Speaker 3: been declining in terms of the volume that goes through
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  Speaker 3: those rails is because it's a very static program that
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  Speaker 3: nothing's changed in thirty years or virtually nothing has changed
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  Speaker 3: in thirty years, so it feels and looks the same
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  Speaker 3: to everyone. And there's been no investment from the banks
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  Speaker 3: because there's no revenue from them generated in that space,
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  Speaker 3: Whereas in terms when you look at contact with payments,
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  Speaker 3: being able to play through a wallet or through tap
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  Speaker 3: and go or you know, in sit whichever way you
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  Speaker 3: want to pay, all of those different methods come through
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  Speaker 3: with technology and investment, and therefore there's significant fees that
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  Speaker 3: have been attached to them. And of course a lot
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  Speaker 3: of that escalation and use happened through and closet COVID,
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  Speaker 3: where we were concerned about, you know, contacting people and
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  Speaker 3: touching things in all of those sorts of areas. So
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  Speaker 3: there was a great escalation in the use at that time.
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  Speaker 3: And now you see ten years ago, forty five percent
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  Speaker 3: of transactions were done via credit and now you know
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  Speaker 3: ten years later twenty one sorry, seventy one percent of
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  Speaker 3: transactions go through either through a wallet, through contactless, or
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  Speaker 3: through credit and so that's a big portion that's got
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  Speaker 3: a significant fee, and that's the big change in what
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  Speaker 3: retailers have experienced in terms of the fees that they're
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  Speaker 3: paying back through to the banks and credit card companies.
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  Speaker 2: Does it worry you that labours come to the rescue
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  Speaker 2: here potentially.
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  Speaker 3: Look, if they can get the banks tops or the fee,
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  Speaker 3: that will be a great outcome. We're absolutely one hundred
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  Speaker 3: and ten that you talk about the retailers.
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  Speaker 2: Given that you don't think that it's possible. They may
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  Speaker 2: have just doesn't rescue to force a thing through that
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  Speaker 2: actors just effectively killed off and thank god for that.
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  Speaker 2: But they may in fact revive a bad thing.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think they will. They won't revive it as
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  Speaker 3: it is. We've had a couple of conversations with Ariana
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  Speaker 3: Williams and certainly there was no way that they were
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  Speaker 3: going to support its status quo. So we've reached out
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  Speaker 3: to her today and waiting to speak to her further
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  Speaker 3: on her suggestions.
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  Speaker 2: Excellent, Carolyn, Thank you very much, appreciate it. Carolyn, young
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  Speaker 2: retail ends and CEO.
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