Clamp Down on Credit Card Surcharges
As of Saturday 6th April 2013, new Regulations have taken effect which may significantly limit the level of surcharge that you can charge when a consumer makes a payment to you via credit / debit card.
The new prohibition is contained in the Consumer Protection (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 and states that traders must not charge consumers more than the cost borne to them for accepting a given means of payment. In plain English, this means that you cannot apply a credit / debit card charge to transactions which exceeds the cost that you actually incur when processing such payments.
Furthermore, there are limits as to the ‘type’ of costs which you can include when calculating the cost to you of processing such transactions. While the Regulations themselves are silent on this point, the Government have produced Guidance which states that “only the direct costs to a trader that are exclusively attributable to using a particular means of payment” are recoverable through a payment surcharge.
Should you be in need of any further advice on this topic, please do not hesitate to contact the team here at Travlaw, who will be happy to assist.
This article was originally published on: 15 April 2013
