Leah McKerrow: North Chamber CEO on the call to reverse the ban on card surcharges

A view that small businesses may suffer and not be able to survive if the Government's surcharge ban comes into play. 

Commerce Minister Scott Simpson announced the ban on surcharges like PayWave will be in place by May next year.  

In an open letter, 36 Chambers of Commerce, industry and business associations warn the ban will just be passed on through increased prices. 

North Chamber Chief Executive Leah McKerrow told Francesca Rudkin there should a consumer line that identifies those abusing the surcharge, as now small businesses will face increased costs. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Zealand's top business leaders are pushing back on changes
to credit cards, surcharges, Retail New Zealand and business chambers
across the country have penned an open letter to Commerce
Minister Scott Simpson. They're urging him to reverse plans that
would ban businesses from passing on credit card fees. They
say that will lead to unintended consequences for business owners.
Leah mccarro, the CEO of North Chamber and one of

(00:23):
the signatories, joins me, Now, good morningly, thanks for your time,
than Tomadie. What have businesses said to you about the ban?
How dire are the consequences that we're looking at here?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, the band comes into effect next May. So while
I haven't heard necessarily a lot specifically from the businesses,
but we do know that any cost that's occurred by
them is going to actually affect them quite greatly, particular
at the moment, so there is concern that these mountain
costs are going to have quite an impact on them.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Is the issue that small rural businesses are going to
be subsidizing US big city paywayver dittion consumers.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, you know you're right, It does depend on the
way that people pay, and obviously it's the credit cards
that are incurring the costs. We've got to remember that
the credit card companies and the banks are the ones
that actually set these fees. And there is already a
regulation in place that that businesses can't charge more than
they are being charged. But yes, it is going to

(01:23):
be those smaller, those companies that take the money. They're
not going to incur the cost in the first place,
so it won't matter too much to them.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, was this an unintended consequence? Do you think? Do
you think that the minister knew that this would kind
of happen as a result of the law change.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Look, I think so. I mean, she has suggested that
that businesses treat it, you know, to treat that like
any other price increase, in that they just put it
on top of the costs. But that means that every
consumer is going to be impacted by that, not just
so as deciding to use pay label credit cards seems
a little unfair to every consumer.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Before the ban, Leah, you know, small businesses were charging increasing,
charging more and more for payWave. What's going to stop
them from doing that again? If the charges are scrapped.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well, I think that's what we're suggesting is rather than
scrapping them or or making it that small business is
not able to charge it, that they put in a
restriction around that. There is already, as I said, a
requirement of actually charge no more than that being charged.
But surely we can do that and then have some
sort of consumer line that actually identifies those businesses that

(02:36):
may well be trying to buck the system and make
money out of it. That's not the point. The point
is that these small businesses are the ones that are
now going to be incurring these costs. What are they
to do?

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Leah, On a completely different note, I believe the Northland
Monopoly game has just arrived and Dargaville is upset they
got the brown spaces.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, I think that there was some concern. That was
the first question I got, asked, who's the brown spaces?
And I think we need to think about where could
I actually purchase a property when I'm just entering on
the ladder, and I reckon Dargable is just the place
for people who got the gorgeous who.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Got the blue properties?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Oh do you know? At the top of mind, I
cannot recall, but It is absolutely beautiful and it's lands
and fung array this morning. So we're going down to
open the container and it's pretty special actually.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh brilliant, brilliant. Enjoy that. Thank you so much, Lea.
Appreciate that that was the Maciro there for the CEO
of Mid Chamber and one of those signatories.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
to news Talks.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio