Credit card fees Canada

Settlement in a long-running class-action battle between small merchants, Visa, MasterCard and financial institutions will see new rules come into effect ...

Canadian retailers will be allowed to pass 'swipe' fees onto customers as of October 6. That means you could start seeing a 1-3% added charge, plus tax, ...

When you pay via credit card, you and the business you're paying are both charged a processing fee. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has ...

The action is prohibited by the province's Consumer Protection Act, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB). Elsewhere in Canada, ...

CNW/ - Merchants will soon have the ability to surcharge on credit card transactions to offset credit card processing fees, and nearly one in five (19%) ...

While it was never illegal in Ontario for businesses to pass on credit card fees to customers, Visa and Mastercard had their own rules against surcharging, ...

New rules about credit card surcharges and who has to pay them are set to take effect across Canada on Thursday, giving all business owners the pow...

Only 15 per cent of the nearly 4,000 Canadian business owners surveyed indicated that they didn't intend to put surcharges on the customer's tab. With mounting pressures small businesses are facing due to inflation and government-imposed costs, surcharging is another way to reduce their cost burden." The Visa and Mastercard rules affecting surcharging are set to change October 6, 2022," reads "Additionally, Visa and Mastercard have agreed to modify their no-surcharge rules to allow merchants to surcharge up to a cap, and to ensure this ability to surcharge remains in effect for a minimum of five years," reads the class action lawsuit's website. Class action members of the lawsuit (all business owners) initially alleged that Visa, Mastercard and "certain banks" had conspired to "set higher interchange fees and to impose rules restricting merchants' ability to surcharge or refuse higher cost Visa and Mastercard credit cards." New rules about credit card surcharges and who has to pay them are set to take effect across Canada on Thursday, giving all business owners the power to choose whether or not they pass along Visa and Mastercard's "swipe fees" to consumers who pay with plastic.

Merchants will soon have the ability to surcharge on credit card transactions to offset credit card processing fees, says the CFIB.

Small businesses in Quebec should also have the right to surcharge to offset their credit card fees. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 95,000 members across every industry and region. Once they have registered their intent to surcharge, merchants must then wait 30 days before they can start to apply a surcharge on Visa and Mastercard transactions. Currently, 35% encourage customers to use other forms of payment and 28% said they increase their prices to absorb credit card fees. A recent survey of CFIB members found that 19% of merchants intend to use the new power to surcharge, while a further 26% said they will do it if their competitors or suppliers do. “Small businesses have long been dealing with expensive credit card processing fees and trying to find ways to absorb the cost of accepting premium cards without the ability to surcharge or refuse those cards.

While consumers love the convenience and rewards of paying with credit cards, they have raised the ire of retailers for years because as part of the original ...

"So yeah, I'm very happy that it would be transferred to the people actually making the choice — and they do have a choice." [Telus has already warned its customers that they'll have to pay a surcharge](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/telus-credit-card-bill-1.6548325) of about $2 per customer on average starting this month, if they pay their bill with a credit card. "Most smaller merchants are still on the fence or don't plan to surcharge as they don't want to risk losing customers," Corinne Pohlmann, CFIB's senior vice-president of national affairs and partnerships, said. "I rarely pay for travel because of the points," Calgary resident Lyndsay Powell said. "We're really in a point of razor-thin margins, and two per cent could matter," he said. Samantha Cook, also of Calgary, is of a similar mindset. The fee can range from fractions of a per cent to more than two per cent for some premium cards. The new rules won't be a free-for-all, as starting Thursday, merchants must give card providers 30 days' notice of their intent to start charging a fee. "I look favourably on this change because I think it will probably change consumer behaviour," said Chris, who owns Buna, a downtown Toronto coffee shop, and Nunu, a restaurant, with his wife. "For an additional two per cent ... Visa says the average interchange fee for its cards in Canada is 1.4 per cent. But the rules won't be in force in Quebec, because that type of fee is forbidden under the province's Consumer Protection Act.