Government hints at capping bank surcharges for debit, credit cards

By Anneke Smith of RNZ

The coalition Government has hinted at imposing a cap on the surcharges people pay for using their debit and credit cards.

Australia is set to ban debit card surcharges as part of a crackdown on consumer fees to ease financial pressure on households.

The New Zealand Government has confirmed it has been working on changes to both debit and credit card fees for the past three months.

Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly said he was waiting to receive advice from the agency before making decisions.

“They’ve consulted on two things. One is around the interbank charge which is currently 0.7% moving to 0.2%, that’s what they’ve proposed.

“And the second element is whether they have a total surcharge cap, which is an issue that I’m very interested in.”

Bayly said the Commerce Commission should return its advice in the next few weeks and people could expect an announcement on changes “very shortly”.

Former Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Labour MP Duncan Webb said his party had also been looking into making changes while in Government.

“There’s nothing that irritates me more than seeing a 2% fee for using my PayWave, and I think we should be looking at it because we know that’s not the actual cost of using the PayWave system.

“So I hope our Consumer Affairs Minister has a good look at it and stops some more of the gouging by the financial service providers.”