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A few years ago the regulations in Australia were changed so that the CC companies can't force merchants to cross-subsidise the fees - merchants are allowed to

by caf 11y ago

A few years ago the regulations in Australia were changed so that the CC companies can't force merchants to cross-subsidise the fees - merchants are allowed to directly pass on the transaction fees as a surcharge if they want. I've certainly chosen to use alternate payment methods to avoid the surcharge when convenient, so this must be putting some competitive pressure on the CC transaction fees.

Maxious 11y ago
The next wave of that regulation should come into effect soon - the banks tried some loopholes and merchants like Jetstar claimed they needed to levy huge surcharges so another reform is required: "the Board is proposing to change the Bank's surcharging standard with the aim of ensuring that customers cannot be surcharged any more than the cost of accepting cards." "It is proposed that no credit card interchange fee will be able to exceed 0.80 per cent and no debit interchange fee will be able to exceed 15 cents if levied as a fixed amount or 0.20 per cent if levied as a percentage amount." http://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2015/mr-15-24.html http://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2015/mr-15-24.html