Caps on interchange fees set to be extended to include cards issued to businesses
Thursday, 4 June 2026
The Commerce Commission is proposing to extend a cap on personal credit card interchange fees to also cover cards issued to businesses, in a move it expects to save businesses about $40 million a year.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Cameron Brewer said he expected the savings that retailers would make if the draft ruling was confirmed would flow through to consumers.
“When a retailer gets charged too much to accept a payment, that cost doesn’t just sit with them. It gets passed on to all of us as consumers through surcharges and higher prices at the counter,” he said.
The competition watchdog said businesses currently paid $125m a year in interchange fees when accepting payments made using Mastercard and Visa commercial credit cards.
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The fees helped fund cardholder benefits such as loyalty rewards, but flowed through to all customers in the form of higher prices, it said.
In a draft decision released this morning, the commission has proposed capping the fees, though at a slightly higher level than applies to personal credit cards.
In the case of domestically issued commercial credit cards, which make up the bulk of credit cards issued to businesses, the interchange fee would be capped at 0.5% of the value of an in-person transaction, or 0.9% when cards were used online.
The premium over the respective 0.3% and 0.7% caps that apply to personal credit cards was in justified in part because of the extra costs banks faced managing and preventing fraud using such cards, it said.
Some merchants might also need to go to the expense of setting up trade accounts if business customers weren’t able to pay by card, it also said.
Commissioner Bryan Chapple said the competition watchdog expected to finalise its ruling later this year.
“We don’t think the corner dairy should be forced to absorb additional costs or increase their prices to cover the costs of rewards and benefits only those with commercial credit cards get,” he said.