Government Departments: Credit Cards

(asked on 13th April 2017) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish a list of government departments and agencies that apply a surcharge when customers make payments by credit card.


Answered by
 Portrait
Simon Kirby
This question was answered on 24th April 2017

HM Treasury has not made an analysis of the Government departments and agencies that apply a surcharge when customers make payments by credit card.

However, from January 2018 the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) introduces a ban on surcharging which means that retailers will no longer be able to charge consumers to use payment instruments for which interchange fees are regulated, which includes the majority of consumer debit and credit cards.

Merchants currently pay a merchant service charge to process all card transactions. Part of this covers the fees that a merchant acquirer can be charged by a card issuing bank for processing transactions known as interchange fees. The Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR), which came into force in December 2015, caps the fees that could be passed on to consumers from merchants in the form of higher prices at 0.2% and 0.3% for debit and credit cards respectively.

Reticulating Splines