Paying with a credit card? Expect to see a fee when you shop under new rules that start now
With record-high inflation, Canadian shoppers are well aware that the cost of just about everything is going up.
But they can soon expect to see a new demand for their dollars when they shop, because starting Thursday, retailers and other businesses will be allowed to charge them a fee every time they swipe their credit card once notice is provided to card companies.
What caused this change?
While consumers love the convenience and rewards of paying with credit cards, they have raised the ire of retailers for years because as part of the original card agreements, stores had to give a percentage of every sale to the card providers for making the transaction happen. The fee can range from fractions of a per cent to more than two per cent for some premium cards.
And the stores had no choice in the matter. Want to accept a card, the card company charged the store for accepting their card.
Customers love paying with cards because “they get their points, their rebates, their benefits,” she said, “but they rarely ask themselves who’s paying for that.
“In reality, the more benefits those credit cards give the consumer, the more expensive they are for the merchant to accept them.”
And when the credit card companies offer a new benefit, more rewards, the stores are never part of the negotiations on them.
Instead, the credit card companies wants more people to use their new cards, at the determent of the stores/merchants.
The new rules won’t be a free-for-all, as starting Thursday, merchants must give card providers 30 days’ notice of their intent to start charging a fee. They must also make it clear to customers at the time of payment that there’s a surcharge, and it can’t be more than they pay themselves. Finally, the surcharge will be capped at 2.4 per cent.
I can see the cry of consumers.
Just like some food establishments are charging a “TIP” on all transactions (or you are prompted on a TIPs screen before the final total), and delivery services doing something similar as well, now ALL businesses will get to recover some of the costs of accepting credit cards (and the points/benefits they had no choice over).
A Bank of Canada report last year found that Canadians racked up $3.4 billion worth of rewards from their credit cards in 2018, with higher-income earners benefiting the most because they are far more likely to use credit cards as payment.
Those rewards come at a steep cost for merchants — more than $11 billion in 2018, the central bank found — but many consumers will be unlikely to give up those perks.
So the difference ($11 billion less $3.4 billion = $7.6 billion) is what the credit card companies MADE off these fees they charge the merchants for accepting their cards. And that revenue is on top of all those interest fees they collect from card users too!
Personally, I think the credit card companies should not only LOWER their fees to the merchants, but also COVER the cost of all those perks and benefits they so generously offer to entice consumers to get their cards.
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