Tag: RBA

A Better EFTPOS Deal Ahead Of The Surcharge Ban

From 1 October, card surcharging ends.

For retailers who currently pass card costs on to customers, that is a real change to the maths. The cost does not disappear. It moves onto your side of the ledger.

We have been working on this for members.

newsXpress has negotiated a new EFTPOS arrangement designed to reduce what members pay to accept card payments. What each store saves will depend on its card mix, its transaction volumes and what it pays today, so we are happy to sit down with any member and work through their own numbers.

There is one point we want to make plainly.

newsXpress retains no margin from this arrangement. None. Every bit of the benefit flows through to the member.

That was a deliberate decision. It would have been easy to take a clip. Plenty of groups do. We took the view that the whole purpose of negotiating as a group is to give members buying power they could not access alone. Skimming from that would undercut the point.

Payments are one of those costs that drift. A rate gets set when the terminal is installed and then nobody looks at it again for years. Meanwhile the market moves. Many retailers are paying more than they need to and have no easy way to tell.

The surcharge ban makes this worth attention now rather than later. Once you are absorbing the cost yourself, the rate you pay goes straight to your bottom line.

A few sensible steps before October.

Check what you are actually paying, all in. That means the merchant service fee, terminal rental and any monthly charges, not just the headline rate. Look at your card mix, since debit and credit behave differently and the balance varies a lot between stores.

Review any surcharging signage, menus and online checkout wording so nothing is left in place after 30 September. Little things get missed. A sticker on a terminal. A line on a website checkout page.

Then take a proper look at whether your current arrangement is still competitive. If it has not been reviewed in a few years, it probably is not.

Members can talk to our head office team about the newsXpress arrangement and what it would mean for their store.

This is the kind of work that is not glamorous. It does not make for an exciting shop floor. It simply leaves more money in the business at the end of each month, which is its own reward.

If you are a newsagent weighing up your options for the year ahead, we would be glad to talk.

The surcharge is about to disappear. Here is how to be ready.

On 1 October, the little card surcharge plenty of retailers have been adding at the counter goes away.

The Reserve Bank has confirmed it. From that date you cannot surcharge eftpos, Visa or Mastercard, and the card networks will enforce it through your merchant agreement. This is not a proposal you can wait out. It is coming.

For most of us in this channel the surcharge was a quiet way to claw back the cost of taking cards. That option is gone. The cost is not. It just moves onto your margin unless you do something about it.

So here is what we would do between now and September.

Ring your terminal provider first. Most systems will not turn surcharging off by themselves, and we have seen plenty of shops assume they will. Get it confirmed in writing. While you are at it, check your point of sale so no card fee is quietly sitting as a line on a receipt after the date.

Then look at your prices. Work out what accepting cards actually costs you as a share of sales. For a typical newsagency it is small, often well under two per cent, but it is real money over a year. Decide whether you wear it or lift a handful of base prices to cover it. A broad, gentle adjustment beats fiddling with every ticket.

There is a sweetener most people are missing. The RBA is cutting interchange fees at the same time, so your underlying cost of taking cards should fall. But that saving only reaches you if your provider passes it on, and there is no rule forcing them to. Ask them straight what your new rate will be. If the answer is vague, that is your cue to compare offers.

Handle this calmly and it becomes a small win rather than a headache. One honest price at the counter. No surprise fee at the terminal. No awkward chat while a customer waits. The shops that sort this out early in September will simply look more professional than the ones scrambling on the last weekend.

Find out more: help@newsxpress.com.au.