Merchant service fees submission
26 Mar 2021
We recently made a submission on the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment’s (MBIE) issues paper: Regulating to reduce Merchant Service Fees.
The setting of merchant service fees is outside of our mandate and card schemes are not covered by our clearing system rules. However, we do manage the rules for the Consumer Electronic Clearing System (CECS) which govern EFTPOS transactions. CECS operates within a network where multiple payment instruments and payment schemes share infrastructure and processes. We have responded to questions in the issues paper that are relevant to our role.
In our submission, we note that card-based payments are only one component of an efficient retail payment system, which also includes account-to-account payments. We outlined the important role Payments NZ and our industry participants have played in the self-governance of the payment system, and the impact this has had in creating the safe, efficient, open, interoperable, and innovative retail payment system we have today.
You can download and read our full submission below.
Note: The performance dashboard data in our submission shows payment trends using indicative volumes and values that are processed through CECS and card schemes.
Payments NZ Merchant Service Fees submission (547.1 KB)