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RBA wants to end card surcharges and save users $1.2b a year (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 1 month ago by Eyekaytee@aussie.zone to c/ausfinance@aussie.zone

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[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I quite like the idea as long as it doesn't mean consumers are incentivised to get rewards cards. Rewards cards are a scourge and should attract a mandatory surcharge to the customer over which the business has no control.

Why? Rewards cards shouldn't be a thing. They just increase the cost of doing business and all consumers are subsidising the card provider and their customers in the form of higher prices.

"No Amex" is a beautiful sign to see at businesses who refuse to play ball.

But the same should go for frequent flyer miles and the like.

All businesses ought to prefer EFTPOS because it's cheap as chips in comparison to visa and MasterCard, but the payment providers are making them artificially more expensive in some cases.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Moat rewards cards cost though don't they, are there any free ones ? I have an NAB Qantas one that's "free" but that's grandfathered to no annual fee becase I own a bunch of shares, (this feature is no longer available BTW), otherwise I think its $275 per annum.

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

They do exist: https://www.canstar.com.au/credit-cards/compare/no-annual-fee-credit-cards/

The important part is the fees they charge merchants in order to cover the cost of the rewards points. That's coming from increased prices to cover the cost if the fee is not being passed on to the card user.

We're all technically subsidising your rewards points, and I think that's a perverse incentive we ought to fix.

We should want card fees to be a minimal as possible to increase productivity, and with technology being as it is, 1% is a ridiculous sum already, but rewards cards charge the merchant more, and buy now pay later even more than that.

Making the merchant wear this cost while not regulating fees to the merchant, is not great, in my opinion.

Make EFTPOS default and ubiquitous. Rewards cards are a scam to society