Card surcharges ended across Australia today. In some ordering apps, a new line has appeared in the cart — a platform fee.
What's happening?
From today, businesses can no longer add a surcharge because a customer pays with an eftpos, Visa, Mastercard or Amex card. The no-surcharge rules come from the card networks after the RBA's review, and apply online as well as in store.
me&u, the QR ordering platform, now charges a guest platform fee: a fixed amount based on order size, not a percentage. It runs from 20c on orders up to $24.99 to a $2.90 cap on anything over $150. Guests see it in the cart labelled “me&u platform fee”. Venues decide who pays; me&u's default passes it to the guest. me&u says its card surcharge is retired, its 1.7% card processing fee is gone, and it now covers card processing costs itself.
Bopple, another ordering platform, describes its platform fee as a usage-based charge covering “the infrastructure, security and support behind your customers' ordering experience”. It's charged only on successful orders, and venues decide whether to pay it or pass it on. The fee is the same whichever payment method a customer uses.
Bookings are affected, too. Holey Moley's terms now include a 2% booking fee (GST inclusive) on the cart value for online, phone and email bookings, applying to every payment type: card, EFT, cash or gift card. In August, the same page listed a 0.73% surcharge on online card payments.
Who it affects
For diners, the charges appear as their own line before payment: me&u shows its fee in the cart with a short explanation, and Bopple says its fee appears from the moment the cart is viewed.
For venues, it's a decision about where the cost sits: both platforms let venues absorb the fee or pass it on. The RBA says card processing costs can be reflected in a business's overall prices rather than charged separately.
What it means for you
The ban covers card payment surcharges only. The ACCC says businesses can still charge fees separate from how a customer pays — booking fees and service fees among them — and weekend and public holiday surcharges are unchanged. But a fee that only applies to some payment methods is “probably a card payment surcharge by another name”, and fees a consumer can't avoid need to be included in the price shown.
Check the total before you pay, and ask what any extra line is for. If a fee looks tied to how you're paying, raise it with the business or report it to the ACCC. We looked at the other changes at the checkout in this week's post.
Happy dining! G