Payment & Merchant Services
EFTPOS FAQs
Customers using Visa, Mastercard, EFTPOS and American Express can’t be charged an amount higher than then the merchant’s average cost of accepting that card type.
Under the standard, we’re required to provide our merchants with their average cost of acceptance each month on their statements for the fees we charge. At the end of each financial year, we’re required to provide them with their annual average cost of acceptance for the fees we charge.
For more information about the surcharging standard, visit the Reserve Bank of Australia’s website.
No, the decision to surcharge is at the merchant’s discretion.
For more information about the surcharging standard, visit the Reserve Bank of Australia’s website.
The merchant service fees for each card type.
Other fees where applicable include:
- terminal rental
- annual fee
- MOTO fee
- chargeback fee
- EFTPOS paper roll fees
- virtual POS monthly fees.
These fees will be apportioned across each of the card types, based on each card type’s proportion of the total value of transactions.
Along with the fees paid to Suncorp Bank, you may include some additional types of costs if they are directly related to accepting a particular card type.
These are:
- Gateway fees paid to an external payment service provider.
- The cost of fraud prevention services paid to an external provider.
- The cost of insuring against forward delivery risk. This applies to agents (such as travel agents) who pay an external party to insure against the risk that the agent will be liable to a customer for the failure of a principal supplier (such as an airline or hotel) on payments accepted via cards.
- Dial up phone line costs if the sole use is for the EFTPOS facility. If you make voice calls or it connects to any other device within your organisation, this fee can’t be included.
In each case, these costs must be specific to the particular types of cards that you are surcharging, rather than being a cost that applies to all payment methods accepted by you.
They must be costs paid to an external provider and verified by contracts, statements or invoices. A merchant's internal costs can’t be included in a surcharge.
You should use the annual average cost of acceptance in your calculation. However, if only the monthly average cost of acceptance is available, you can use this figure and adjust your surcharge amount when the annual average cost of acceptance is available at the end of the financial year.
If neither is available, and we can’t calculate the average cost of acceptance for you based on data you provide, we suggest that any surcharge amount you choose to apply be limited to only your MSF fee until we have enough transaction data available.
Each month your statement will show your average cost of acceptance for the transactions completed that month and your June statement each year will contain the annual average cost of acceptance for the previous financial year.
Please click the link below to see the table.
No, it’s up to you what transactions you apply the surcharge to.
For example, you can either apply it to all transactions or you can choose to only surcharge on transactions that fall under a certain value or apply it to a certain card type used.
You must also ensure that you notify the cardholder at the time of the transaction and that you also have signage up informing customers of the surcharge amount.
If you wish to make changes to your surcharge amount, then you can update this on your terminal.
The surcharge amounts should always be entered inclusive of GST.
Press the MENU button from the Home screen.
- Select 4 for Terminal.
- Select 5 for Surcharging.
- Select Enable (on the Move 5000 - F1, on the Move 2500 - select the button under the word Enable).
- Press Enter.
Select Issuer will be displayed. Select each issuer and set the surcharging percentage/amount. On the Move 5000 the F2 button is used to tab down to the next issuer.
Mastercard - Select percentage of total.
- Enter the surcharge percentage amount.
- Press Enter.
- Press Enter to confirm.
VISA - Select percentage of total.
- Enter the surcharge percentage amount.
- Press Enter.
- Press Enter to confirm.
EFTPOS Debit - Select Fixed Fee.
- Enter the surcharge amount.
- Press Enter.
- Press Enter to confirm.
AMEX - Select percentage of total.
- Enter the surcharge percentage amount.
- Press Enter.
- Press Enter to confirm.
Diners - Select percentage of total.
- Enter the surcharge percentage amount.
- Press Enter.
- Press Enter to confirm.
Once completed the terminal will prompt - Print Report?
- Press Enter to print the report displaying the latest surcharging percentages and amounts. Make sure these are correct.
Yes, you can manually add a surcharge to the transaction value if you adhere to the rules.
You must have signage advising the surcharge percent % or dollar $ amount you surcharge, and also inform the customer at the time the transaction is being processed.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will be monitoring surcharging practices to ensure merchants are not surcharging in excess of their average cost of acceptance.
They have the authority to issue penalties if a merchant does not adhere to the standard.
For more information on surcharges, please visit the ACCC website.
Yes, each statement has a separate cost of acceptance table applicable to that merchant number.
As long as the merchant facilities are under the same legal entity and have the same industry type, then you can calculate your average cost of acceptance based on the total costs across all of your facilities.
As the merchant, you have a contract directly with American Express to enable you to process AMEX transactions.
American Express will issue their own statements that will include the average cost of acceptance calculation separately for this card type.
If you surcharge and don’t have the surcharging functionality enabled on your terminal, you can choose to calculate the surcharge as a percentage of the transaction value or as a flat dollar amount per transaction.
We have detailed both options on your Average Cost of Acceptance Table.
If you have the surcharging functionality enabled on your terminal, this will always be charged as a percentage for Visa, MasterCard, AMEX or Diners card transactions and a fixed dollar amount for EFTPOS debit transactions.
No, the Taxi industry is monitored and governed by state legislation and have maximum surcharge amounts they can apply.
