No more card surcharge as small businesses cry foul

Businesses will no longer be able to charge customers a direct fee for paying by card, in a move spruiked as helping to ease cost-of-living pressures.

But many small businesses have criticised the change as another hit to their dwindling profit margins.

From Thursday, reforms by the Reserve Bank of Australia mean retailers can no longer charge customers an additional fee for paying by card, and must either absorb the cost themselves or build it into their prices.

Long standing establishment of St Kilda’s Acland Street in Melbourne, Monarch Cakes, is faced with having to raise its prices for the first time in years.

Manager of the 92-year-old bakery, Nikki Laski, called the ban the final straw in terms of keeping prices stable for their many regular customers.

“We’re going to have to raise the prices,” she told AAP.

“We were due to anyway because everything else has gone up.

“But this is going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Many big businesses including Coles and Woolworths were already absorbing the cost of card fees because they could afford to, Ms Laski said.

“It’s the small businesses that do that because they have to in order to survive,” she said.

To help ease the overall pressure, the RBA has also capped interchange fees, which are paid by the merchant’s bank to the customer’s bank each time a payment is processed.

The Reserve Bank expects the new maximum rate of 0.30 per cent - down from 0.80 per cent - will deliver around $660 million a year in lower payment costs for businesses.

Experts are split on what actual effects the changes will have at the till, according to financial comparison site Finder, however most agreed it would be a net positive for consumers.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday backed the surcharge ban, calling it another example of cost of living relief put forward by his government.

“I think when people turn up and tap, be it at a coffee shop or a pub or buying a sandwich for lunch, they expect the price that they see to be the price that they pay,” he said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the ban would save consumers $1.6 billion in card surcharges and save businesses $910 million each year.

Ms Laski said while the changes may seem like a win for customers, if the small businesses providing those services aren’t around then everybody loses.

“That whole seven cents off your coffee might mean that your favourite coffee shop closes,” she said.

John Iodice, who runs the nearby St Kilda bar and eatery The Vineyard, told AAP he couldn’t realistically pass the surcharge on to customers even if he wanted to.

“Imagine it - we’ve got a happy hour, $10 for a pint, but now we’re going to have $10 and 15 cents?” he said.

“I’m going to put, ‘Monday night steak special, $20 and 20 cents’?

“Obviously, we’re going to just cop it.”

Across the road at St Kilda’s Wedge cafe, owner Rami Omran already raised the price of his coffees from the start of September, in part due to the impending charges.

The decision wasn’t just based on the surcharge ban, but an increase in other fees and compliance costs, he told AAP.

He called an outright ban on card surcharges “silly”.

“People can pass on all these other charges, but not that for some reason,” he said.

“People can run the biggest scam of all time, which is the weekend and public holiday surcharges.”

To Mr Omran, customers didn’t care in the first place about paying the surcharge, which will now come out of his pocket.

“Everyone just tapped.”