Carolyn Young: Retail NZ chief executive says it's not the intent that PayWave fees passed to consumers aren't always as accurately reflected

The head of Retail NZ has stopped short of saying consumers are being ripped off by fees for PayWave and online card payments.

The Commerce Commission's consulting on fee capping regulation that could save Kiwis $250 million a year.

Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young told Ryan Bridge fees passed to consumers are not always as accurately reflected as they could be, but that's not necessarily the intent.

“Part of that from the conversations we’ve had with people is through lack of knowledge through a really complicated system, so we want the system to be a lot more simple and straightforward so that everyone can follow it.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Though we could be missing out on two hundred and
fifty million dollars a year due to payWave and online
credit card fees. That's according to the ComCom the Commerce Commission,
who say that there needs to be more regulation to
stop retailers unnecessarily overcharging their customers. They are consulting on
the changes that they want to make. They've also set
a goal to see SURD charges for contact lists or

(00:22):
online payments fall between one and a half and two percent.
Karen Young is from retail end Z and she's with
me this morning. Carolyn, good morning. What do you think
what do you think is a reasonable fee to charge?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Look, I think it's an early days to work out
what would be a reasonable fee to charge with what
we do now is it's a pretty complicated system and
there's a lot of players with their hands in the
till while we're worsening to the process and when we
want it to be much more simpler, more straightforward, easy
for retailers and consumers to follow, something that's open and

(00:55):
transparent so that everyone understands how it looks and what's
reasonable to pay.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So do the shop owners get charged? Do they all
get charged a different amount from you that merchant service
fee that they pay or is that a uniform fee
across everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
There are lots of different sees within the payment gateways
that you pay, depending on the type of card, the
banks you're with, the terminal provider, the card transaction that
goes through. You know, there's lots of different ways in
which that comes through, and what we're one of the
one of the things we're looking for is to make

(01:35):
sure that it's all streamlined so that everybody's bank statement
clearly states what their total SEE is at the end
of each month.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Are we getting ripped off? Is the ComCom right?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
There's probably an element of the fees that could certainly
be trims, that's for sure, and that sits with the
the financial services system within that space, and that's passed
on to retailers and often passed on to consumers.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So you're saying, it's not the retailers who are who
are adding a bit of fashion there, it's the visas
and the master cards.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, there are times when some of the fees that
are passed on to consumers are probably not as accurately
reflected as they could be. And part of that from
the conversations we've had with people is through lack of
knowledge through a really complicated system. So we want system
to be a lot more simple and straightforward so that

(02:38):
everyone can follow it and that all of the players
in that space. There's always bad actors that operate in
spaces that they are providing good advice to businesses, you know,
both retailers and hospitality businesses, and we're working alongside hospitality
to jointly go out to our members and come back.

(03:00):
We're pretty aligned on where we see things and we
want to see improvements across the board.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
All right, Carolyn, thanks so much of your time. It's
Carolyn Young from Retallion ZED. For more from News Talk
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