I found a really interesting press release yesterday released by Retail Council of Canada (RCC) and the “Stop Sticking It To Us” coalition, representing over 200,000 small and large businesses where they are appluading the Senate Committee of Banking for moving forward with an investigation of Canada’s credit and debit card system.
Canadian Merchants pay some of the highest credit card processing fees in the world. The average rate in Canada exceeds over 2%, where in places like Australia the average rate is about 1% and in the UK about 0.79%. This means that Canadian businesses have to pay about $200 or more in processing fees for every $10K processed. This doesn’t just affect Merchants this affects consumers too. If merchants costs go up then consumers costs will raise too.
Credit card companies claim they need to charge these premium rates due to all the cards now that have reward points attached to them. I don’t think anyone disagrees with paying for services, I think all Merchants want is a fair deal.
I really hope the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce really sees this as a real issue and addresses it swiftly. If you are a small business, what are you thoughts on this issue…? Let us know in the comment section below.
