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Defined Terms and Documents
Surcharge Fee means
according to the "Murray
Financial System Enquiry -
Payments Sector"
since 2003, the RBA has required
Payment Systems to remove ‘no surcharge’ rules so
Merchants can pass on
the reasonable costs of card acceptance, such as
Merchant Service Fees, to Cardholders. These standards apply to both
Three-Party Schemes and
Four-Party Schemes, but not to online payment
system providers.36
Allowing
Merchants to Surcharge introduces a price signal
to customers about the cost of the payment mechanism they use and can help
reduce the effects of the
Interchange Fee issues highlighted
previously.
All such fees listed in
Credit Cardholder
Fees.
Table 2.1: Summary of payment
system regulation
| System |
Type |
Interchange fee
regulation |
Customer surcharging
regulation |
| eftpos debit |
Four-Party Scheme |
Weighted-average cap of 12 cents
per transaction |
No explicit prohibition on ‘no
surcharge’ rules, but no such rules applied |
| MasterCard/Visa debit |
Four-Party Scheme |
Weighted-average cap of 12 cents
per transaction |
Prohibition of ‘no surcharge’
rules |
| MasterCard/Visa credit |
Four-Party Scheme |
Weighted-average cap of 0.5 per
cent of transaction values |
Prohibition of ‘no surcharge’
rules |
| Amex/Diners Club credit |
Three-Party Scheme |
No regulation (no interchange
fees to regulate) |
Voluntary undertaking to refrain
having from ‘no surcharge’ rules |
| Amex companion cards |
In between three-party and
four-party schemes |
No regulation (only service fees,
which are not regulated) |
Voluntary undertaking to refrain
from having ‘no surcharge’ rules |
| Online payment systems |
Variety of models, often linked
to other systems |
No regulation |
No regulation |
On
26 May 2016, News.com.au reports: "The
Reserve Bank of Australia has today released
its final standard on
excessive surcharges, with the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission tasked
with enforcing the ban."
The Competition
and Consumer Amendment (Payment Surcharges) Bill 2015 introduced
in Parliament last year and passed in February this year empowered a federal
agency – the ACCC – to enforce the ban on excessive credit card surcharging
approved by the RBA in March 2012.
RBA got involved with
Surcharges, but
Banks boost penalty charges notes that RBA avoided
involvement with Over-the-Limit fees
which were an even greater wrought
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