Noosa Council is expected to introduce a credit card surcharge of 0.55 per cent on all Visa and MasterCard payments as soon as possible.
Co-ordinator of financial services Wayne Jensen told the planning and organisation committee on Tuesday council had paid about $50,000 in bank and merchant fees to date with a significant portion of these fees relating to credit card payments. Under Reserve Bank guidelines, council was able to recover actual costs of card acceptance and it was proposed to impose a surcharge of 0.55 per cent which compared favourably with the current average merchant fee of 0.83 per cent. He said with more and more people using credit cards for the payment of rates and charges, and with many merchants imposing a range of card surcharges, it was not expected there would be any consumer backlash. “The council’s annual budget is expected to yield $75 million in rates, charges and fees. If 30 per cent of all payments are made on credit cards, the proposed surcharge will recover costs of $123,750,” Mr Jensen said. The committee agreed to refer the recommendation to Monday’s meeting of the council’s general committee.
