"Will Card Fees Decrease?"... Credit Card Association Conducts Cost Analysis of Fees

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] Three years after the reduction of card merchant fees in 2018, cost analysis work for the re-evaluation of fees has begun.

According to the card industry on the 21st, the Credit Finance Association sent proposals to major accounting firms on the 19th to select a specialized consulting agency to conduct the cost analysis of card merchant fees.

The Credit Finance Association plans to select the cost analysis consulting agency in early next month after reviewing the proposals from accounting firms that expressed their intention to participate.

Typically, the cost analysis by accounting firms is conducted from May to August, followed by discussions among financial authorities and various organizations to determine appropriate fee costs and restructuring plans.

At that time in 2018, the financial authorities finalized a restructuring plan to reduce credit card fees by up to 0.65 percentage points and check card fees by up to 0.46 percentage points for small and medium merchants with sales between 500 million and 3 billion KRW, announcing it at the end of November.

The card industry is concerned that excessive fee reductions may occur due to the management difficulties of small business owners caused by COVID-19 and political variables such as the presidential election scheduled for next year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.