Fed: Macfarlane would like credit card holders to pay fee

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-2003
Fed: Macfarlane would like credit card holders to pay fee

CANBERRA, Dec 8 AAP - Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane would like credit card holders
to be hit with a transaction fee when they made a purchase or paid a bill.

But he conceded that was not (not) going to happen.

Mr Macfarlane said credit cards were the only form of payment where the person paying
could avoid a transaction fee and they were designed that way to get people to use them.

He said if merchants retrieved some of the money banks charged them for accepting credit
cards from card holders it would not disturb him.

"In fact what we would like to see is the cardholder actually pay a small transaction
fee," Mr Macfarlane said.

"But that's never going to happen because the marketing strategy is to keep the transaction
fee at zero.

"So part of the rebalancing, part of bringing the credit card more into line with the
other payment systems actually does involve the cardholder having to pay some of the money."

AAP sm/apm/br

KEYWORD: RBA CARDS

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