Credit Card Surchage - Are you changing your method of payment?

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Credit Card Surchage - Are you changing your method of payment?

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#3465805 1-Mar-2026 13:51

richms:

You will have issues at places with the new terminals that do not allow for swiping tho.

I have an EFT-POS card that has no built in chip. It does expire this year. Will the new one have a chip?.

richms

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#3465806 1-Mar-2026 13:56

rugrat:

richms:

You will have issues at places with the new terminals that do not allow for swiping tho.

I have an EFT-POS card that has no built in chip. It does expire this year. Will the new one have a chip?.

No idea. Just know that the sweet deal on a new terminal that some places have got to offer no surcharge paywave has a terminal with nowhere to swipe. So the lunch bar near work has their old one for swipe transactions and the new one for paywave/chip use.

I'm pretty certain that its the same hardware that is the no surcharges promo from the terminal vendor. Work sells things that cant be done thru visa/mastercard so that deal was of no interest to us since many people do not have any ability to use their credit cards thru the check or savings buttons and have to use their ATM card to eftpos.

Richard rich.ms

rugrat

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#3465807 1-Mar-2026 14:06

If there’s no surcharge on the ones that don’t support swipe that’s great. I have payWave turned off on my card, so if lose it someone can’t run around doing transactions on it (with damaged chip that may not work either), I use watch or phone to do payWave and that is working fine.

mudguard

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#3465812 1-Mar-2026 14:38

Behodar:

mudguard:

I suspect we'll see cash handling fees in the future.

Meanwhile I've just been to a restaurant that gave a 5% discount for paying with cash.

Which is technically illegal. You can walk into a store and they have a promo offering five years interest free on TV X which costs $5000. If you ask what the cash price is and they say $4500 you can then say thanks very much I'll take that price and put it on five years interest free.

freitasm

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#3500105 4-Jun-2026 08:46

From ComCom:

ComCom proposes new interchange fee caps to save businesses $40million

The Commerce Commission has today released its draft decision to introduce caps on interchange fees for Mastercard and Visa commercial credit cards. The Commission considers capping these fees will drive a more fair and efficient payments system.

New Zealand businesses currently pay approximately $125m each year in interchange fees to accept Mastercard and Visa commercial credit cards.

“We expect our proposed interchange fee caps would reduce costs for businesses by $40m annually,” Commissioner Bryan Chapple says.

“The current level of interchange fees for commercial credit cards sees businesses paying high costs to fund cardholder benefits like loyalty programmes, insurance, and interest-free periods.

“We understand these benefits are important for some cardholders, but they shouldn’t be paid for through interchange fees. These fees ultimately flow through to retail prices, where everyone pays for benefits only some people receive.

“We don’t think the corner dairy should be forced to absorb additional costs or increase their prices to cover the costs of rewards and benefits only those with commercial credit cards get.

“We expect out draft decision will lower barriers businesses and consumers face when adopting alternative payment methods, such as open banking. Over time, this will support more effective competition between payment methods and improves incentives for issuers and consumers to consider lower cost or more innovative alternatives,” Mr Chapple says.

This draft decision builds on previous moves to lower interchange fees on personal cards, which, once all the changes have taken effect, is estimated to save businesses up to $290 million each year.

This is the first step in New Zealand to regulate interchange fees on commercial credit cards. Commercial credit cards make up a small share of transactions but generate a disproportionately larger share of interchange fees, which are paid by businesses through their merchant service fees.

“We want to hear from all stakeholders on our draft, and especially businesses as they hold a unique role as both cardholders and card accepters. We expect to make our final decision later this year,” Mr Chapple says.

Background

See our draft decision

Interchange fees are paid by a business’ acquirer (that is, the bank or other payment service provider that enables a business to accept credit and debit card payments) to the customer's card issuer for each transaction on the Mastercard and Visa networks.

New Zealand businesses currently pay approximately $170 million in merchant service fees each year to accept Mastercard and Visa commercial credit card payments, with interchange fees making up approximately $125 million of this.

Interchange exists, in theory, to balance the benefits and costs in the Mastercard and Visa networks between the card issuing side and the card acquiring side of the payment network. It provides a revenue stream incentive for issuers to enter and supply cards to cardholders. Interchange can help fund issuing credentials and physical cards, anti-fraud measures, fraud losses, scheme fees, rewards, and digital wallet fees.

We estimate that merchants will pay less in merchant service fees for commercial credit card transactions should our draft decision be implemented. Actual savings will vary from year to year depending on a merchant’s share of commercial credit transactions and their pricing arrangements with their acquirer.

The estimated savings are based on the most recent Mastercard and Visa transactions from our ongoing monitoring data. We applied pre-regulation interchange fee rates (prior to November 2022) to the latest data to estimate counterfactual costs, then incorporated reductions in interchange fees from the initial pricing standard, the new caps introduced from December 2025, and the proposed commercial credit caps to estimate total savings. Once fully implemented, we estimate these measures to reduce merchant service fees by up to $290 million annually.

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hsvhel

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#3500138 4-Jun-2026 09:31

I had a chat recently to a merchant that had a small sign showing no fee on paywave. Asled how that worked and his take was that yes, the per transaction fee was dropped, but the terminal rental went up a couple hundered per year....

Which caused a increase in his services charged to cover it. Bit of smoke and mirrors in that sector

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wellygary

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#3500145 4-Jun-2026 10:02

freitasm:

From ComCom:

just FYI: This is targeted at "commercial credit cards." i.e those issued to corporates, its not about regular consumer retail cards issued to bank customers

https://www.comcom.govt.nz/news-and-media/news-and-events/2026/comcom-proposes-new-interchange-fee-caps-to-save-businesses-40million/

freitasm

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#3500151 4-Jun-2026 10:17

wellygary:

freitasm:

From ComCom:

just FYI: This is targeted at "commercial credit cards." i.e those issued to corporates, its not about regular consumer retail cards issued to bank customers

https://www.comcom.govt.nz/news-and-media/news-and-events/2026/comcom-proposes-new-interchange-fee-caps-to-save-businesses-40million/

And that's exactly the text of the press release I posted, including the text saying it's about business cards.

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richms

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#3500155 4-Jun-2026 10:26

How will it save these businesses with the cards money when retailers will still be putting the same surcharges on all card types equally?

Richard rich.ms

cddt

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#3500163 4-Jun-2026 10:53

I went to pay for something a few days ago with my eftpos card, the person then had to pull out a different machine to the one they had on the counter, and told me that was the old machine and would be removed soon as the banks were phasing them out. First I had heard of it...

richms

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#3500167 4-Jun-2026 11:04

cddt:

I went to pay for something a few days ago with my eftpos card, the person then had to pull out a different machine to the one they had on the counter, and told me that was the old machine and would be removed soon as the banks were phasing them out. First I had heard of it...

Same thing happened at the lunchbar near work. They have now got another one that has a swipe back on it again instead of 2 terminals. They are wanting to remove stripes from cards because that's how skimming happens, but many people still travel to places with backwards payment systems that use it like the USA.

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#3500189 4-Jun-2026 11:51

richms:

cddt:

I went to pay for something a few days ago with my eftpos card, the person then had to pull out a different machine to the one they had on the counter, and told me that was the old machine and would be removed soon as the banks were phasing them out. First I had heard of it...

Same thing happened at the lunchbar near work. They have now got another one that has a swipe back on it again instead of 2 terminals. They are wanting to remove stripes from cards because that's how skimming happens, but many people still travel to places with backwards payment systems that use it like the USA.

Yep - for SMB's this is now the way things are going.

On a positive - flat rate per transaction no matter what you are doing, eftpos, debit, or visa/MC.

On a negative you are paying a % even on eftpos and debit, which can be a monthly flat rate if you are separating everything out.

Paywave is an addon which they charge more for, which blows my mind.

cddt

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#3500192 4-Jun-2026 12:06

richms:

cddt:

I went to pay for something a few days ago with my eftpos card, the person then had to pull out a different machine to the one they had on the counter, and told me that was the old machine and would be removed soon as the banks were phasing them out. First I had heard of it...

Same thing happened at the lunchbar near work. They have now got another one that has a swipe back on it again instead of 2 terminals. They are wanting to remove stripes from cards because that's how skimming happens, but many people still travel to places with backwards payment systems that use it like the USA.

Surely it should be on the banks to proactively replace these cards then, rather than wait until each customer is left unable to pay at some point and then has to find a bank branch which is still open...

richms

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#3500200 4-Jun-2026 12:37

I was contacted by both banks about getting debit cards to replace them. But fees on them so didnt want to for one bank, and already have one with the other just prefer to have a card that I take with me that cant be used without a pin or used online like an eftpos card.

No sign of any of them making chipped non-debit ATM cards yet. Have to sometime soon tho.

Richard rich.ms

Behodar

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#3500204 4-Jun-2026 12:49

cddt:

would be removed soon as the banks were phasing them out. First I had heard of it...

First I've heard of it too. Westpac's website still lists them as something they currently issue, whereas you'd think the first stage of a phase-out would be to stop issuing new ones.

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