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Speaker 1: Afternoon, you can wave goodbye to the payWave surcharge and

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Speaker 1: basically every other surcharge as well. They've just been banned,

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Speaker 1: effective from March. Retailers or May next year. Other retailers

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Speaker 1: will no longer be able to pass on the huge

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Speaker 1: merchant fees that banks, credit card companies and f boss

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Speaker 1: providers charge them. Scott Simpson is the Consumer Affairs Minister. Afternoon, Scott, Hi,

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Speaker 1: Heather Scott, Why are you banning the retailers from being

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Speaker 1: able to pass on this cost but not dealing with

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Speaker 1: the actual cost itself.

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Speaker 2: Well, we are dealing with the actual cost itself. The

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Speaker 2: Commerce Commission made a decision a week or so ago

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Speaker 2: to significantly lower what's referred to as the interchange fees.

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Speaker 2: These are the fees that the credit card companies are

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Speaker 2: permitted to charge. It's a regulated fee. They're dropping that

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Speaker 2: fee very significantly from December this year. What we're planning

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Speaker 2: to do is make.

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Speaker 1: Sure before you move on. Okay, let's just deal with that.

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Speaker 1: How much is the Commerce Commission taking out of that

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Speaker 1: fee that retailers.

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Speaker 2: Pay About ninety million dollars a eye out of a

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Speaker 2: fee that's out of one hundred and fifty out of

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty.

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Speaker 1: It's the mortal cost is about a billion dollars a

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Speaker 1: year and they're taking ninety out.

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Speaker 2: Well the surcharge. The Communis Commission estimates that New Zealanders

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Speaker 2: pay around one hundred and fifty annually in seer charges,

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Speaker 2: so about one hundred and fifty million. So are they're

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Speaker 2: going to drop out ninety million of that?

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Speaker 1: That's not a fair equation. What the retailers are paying

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Speaker 1: in merch just an interchange fees, right, which is only

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Speaker 1: a portion of the merchant fees, just an interchange fees

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Speaker 1: is one billion dollars a year and they're taking ninety

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Speaker 1: million dollars in How on earth a retailer is supposed

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Speaker 1: to cope with it when they now cannot afford to

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Speaker 1: they can't even afford to recoup it through a surcharge.

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Speaker 2: Well, what we want is to have transparency of pricing,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think it's.

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Speaker 1: Consumer You're going to get the opposite, because when you've

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Speaker 1: got a billion dollars almost in costs you can now

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Speaker 1: not recoup through a surcharge, you're just going to build

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Speaker 1: it into your prices, aren't you? If you're a smart retailer.

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Speaker 2: Well, that hasn't been the experience in the UK or

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Speaker 2: the EU, where surcharges have been banned for some time.

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Speaker 2: In a competitive world, businesses understand the price competitive nature

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Speaker 2: of the businesses that they operate and the goods and

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Speaker 2: services they provide. So surchargers are annoying their pesky and

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Speaker 2: most customers don't actually know whether they're paying the full

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Speaker 2: price or not. When you charge to serve charge it

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Speaker 2: says one and a half, two and a half, three

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Speaker 2: percent or sometimes more. You don't know whether that is

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Speaker 2: actually a fear recouping of the surcharge or whether it's

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Speaker 2: actually retailer taking an extra margt thing.

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Speaker 1: You can choose not to pay it, so you can say, no,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to put my credit card away, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to pay it now. What you're doing to us

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Speaker 1: is we're all going to pay it because it's going

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Speaker 1: to be built into the cost. So I can't put

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Speaker 1: my credit card away now. It doesn't matter what I use,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to pay it.

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Speaker 2: Well, if a retailer doesn't want to take a payWave,

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Speaker 2: they don't have to. There are other ways of paying.

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Speaker 2: What I'm saying, merchant fees.

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Speaker 1: It's not just the payWave though it scott and you

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Speaker 1: know this. Merchant fees themselves are extremely expensive. So what

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Speaker 1: you're doing is in order to pretend to help us

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Speaker 1: with the cost of living crisis, you're building more more

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Speaker 1: into our prices that we're paying. You're making it worse.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't accept that for one minute. I think

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Speaker 2: that New Zealanders want to have transparency of the price

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Speaker 2: they see on the shelf being the same price they

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Speaker 2: pay at the till.

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Speaker 1: Why did you not deal with the likes of any

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Speaker 1: New Zealand and ticket Master and all those guys who

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Speaker 1: are actually charging us egregious amounts who still get to

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Speaker 1: be able to do it because they're not affected by

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Speaker 1: the ban.

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Speaker 2: Well, the ban at the moment includes personal payments, so

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Speaker 2: point of sale payments. We wanted to leave some room

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Speaker 2: for the new fintech companies to find a space to

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Speaker 2: live and thrive. There's a whole range of new technology.

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Speaker 1: Not to be pulling my leg, you wanted to leave

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Speaker 1: Ticketmaster to charge us eight dollars every single time so

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Speaker 1: somebody could set up a business.

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Speaker 2: We are looking at that the initial ban is for

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Speaker 2: in person payments and what we will do is do

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Speaker 2: some create some legislation before May of next year and

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Speaker 2: keep those options open. So the initial ban is on

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Speaker 2: in person payments only, and we'll look to extend that

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Speaker 2: further beyond that as and when as necessary.

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Speaker 1: Scott, thank you, I appreciate your time that Scott Simson,

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Speaker 1: the Consumer Affairs Minister. Eleven Heather Duplicity Allen. For more

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Speaker 1: from Heather Duplicy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks

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Speaker 1: that'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio