Small Credit Card Merchants to Receive 0.5~1.5% Preferential Fees in the First Half of This Year

Refund of Fees to Small Businesses Among New Credit Card Merchants in the Second Half of Last Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Sim Nayoung] The Financial Services Commission announced on the 26th the small and medium-sized credit card merchants that will receive preferential fees in the first half of this year.

A preferential fee of 0.5~1.5% will be applied to 2,977,000 credit card merchants with annual sales of 3 billion KRW or less (96.0% of all merchants), 1,533,000 sub-merchants of payment gateway (PG) companies (93.0% of all PG sub-merchants), and 165,000 individual taxi operators using transportation settlement operators (99.9% of all taxi operators).

For about 187,000 merchants who were newly registered as credit card merchants in the second half of last year and were subject to general merchant fee rates but have now been confirmed as small and medium-sized merchants based on sales, the difference between the card fees already paid and the preferential fees will be refunded. The estimated amount is about 64.5 billion KRW (approximately 340,000 KRW per merchant).

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The preferential fee rates will also be applied retroactively to new PG sub-merchants and individual taxi operators. This includes 154,000 PG sub-merchants and 4,843 individual taxi operators who newly opened businesses in the second half of last year and have now been confirmed as small and medium-sized merchants based on sales.

Those eligible for retroactive application can check the total refund amount through the integrated merchant sales transaction information inquiry system of the Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute, and detailed information such as daily and transaction-specific refund amounts can be found on each card company's website. Refunds will be made starting from March 17.

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