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Speaker 1: Afternoon. The Commerce Commission has taken the first step towards

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Speaker 1: putting a cap on what you pay to use your

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Speaker 1: credit card as a pay wave card. They reckon, we

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Speaker 1: are paying too much for the privilege, about a billion

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Speaker 1: dollars a year, and the ComCom has started consultation about

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Speaker 1: regulating that amount. John Small is the chairman of the

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Speaker 1: Commos Commission with us now, Hey.

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Speaker 2: John, hey, hell, how are you doing very well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 1: Am I right in thinking you want to take the

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Speaker 1: surcharge down from about an average of two point five

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Speaker 1: percent to zero point seven percent?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much the strength of it, that's right. Yes,

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Speaker 2: we think that that's doable, and we think it'll be

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Speaker 2: pretty beneficial in lots of ways.

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Speaker 1: If you are successful in being able to regulate this.

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Speaker 1: Does this mean, for example, that if you go to

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Speaker 1: pay your parking and it's three dollars and you're going

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Speaker 1: to tap your card, you no longer pay a fifty

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Speaker 1: cents charge for tapping your card. You only pay zero

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Speaker 1: point seven percent.

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Speaker 2: That's what it should be. It's that, you know, a

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Speaker 2: zero point seven percent. Some merchants will say why bother?

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Speaker 2: And that would be a good outcome. The reason we're

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Speaker 2: saying zero point seven percent is a part of what

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Speaker 2: we're doing here, Heather as trying to simplify these rates

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Speaker 2: so the merchants know much more clearly what they're what

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Speaker 2: it's costing them, and then that allows us as buyers

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Speaker 2: to also know that. So if you see, under this

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Speaker 2: new new world, if consultation goes the way that we

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Speaker 2: kind of hope it will, then people will be able

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Speaker 2: to expect to not ever pay more than.

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Speaker 1: Point seven If they are charged zero point seven percent

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Speaker 1: of paying three dollars for your parking is not even

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Speaker 1: one cent. So if they're charging us fifty cent, are

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Speaker 1: they ripping us off?

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Speaker 2: Well, these are charges that we're seeing at the moment.

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Speaker 2: A lot of them are well above cost. But part

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Speaker 2: of the problem is that is that you and I

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Speaker 2: don't actually know what their cost is, and sometimes they

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Speaker 2: don't neither.

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Speaker 1: How much more are they charging us in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: than they're charging overseas? This is Visa and master.

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Speaker 2: Cand well, you know, in New Zealand's interchange this is

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Speaker 2: an change fee that we're talking about pushing down. You know,

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Speaker 2: ours are sort of higher than some and lower than others.

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Speaker 2: Basically around the world. But we're looking at the UK

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Speaker 2: in Europe where and benchmarking fees against them. They seem

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Speaker 2: to be able to maintain perfectly viable payment networks, and

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Speaker 2: so that's the kind of benchmark that we're looking at.

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Speaker 2: But you know, as you know, there's been much higher

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Speaker 2: rates than that in New Zealand and elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you are able to introduce this cap,

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Speaker 1: would this include tapping online fees that you pay for

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Speaker 1: your credit card, like, for example, when you pay for

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Speaker 1: the New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: We yes, it will be. It's designed to be very universal.

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Speaker 2: So as I say, we're in consultation at the moment.

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Speaker 2: We'll see what people have got to say. Some people

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Speaker 2: might tell it's a terrible idea because of this or

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Speaker 2: that unexpected unintended consequence. We'll have a look at all that.

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Speaker 2: But that's definitely where we're hitting, right.

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Speaker 1: You know, you want the retailers to absorb this stuff.

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Speaker 1: If it gets low enough, do you think they will learn?

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Speaker 2: Hard to know? But I mean I think either way

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Speaker 2: it's not going to matter too much. If there's a

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Speaker 2: clear expectation and it's such a low number as zero

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Speaker 2: point seven, then you know it's not as you say

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Speaker 2: it's only going to be a few cents on a

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Speaker 2: small purchase, so for them it might be a wide

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Speaker 2: bother and for us it's you know, just not much. Hopefully, John.

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Speaker 1: I'm into this. I want to see you do this.

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Speaker 1: So how long do I have to wait?

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Speaker 2: Good question. We've got the consultation open for I think

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Speaker 2: a couple of weeks or maybe a bit longer. The

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Speaker 2: good news is that the Commission has the power to

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Speaker 2: do this, so we don't have to go to a

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Speaker 2: court or persuade a minister or anything like that. So

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Speaker 2: we'll see, We'll see what comes back in the replies

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Speaker 2: and then have a good hard plink about it internally

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Speaker 2: and make our call good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time, John, that's John Small, Commerce Commission Chairman.

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