"Small Credit Card Merchants Opened This Year to Receive Average KRW 400,000 Fee Refund"

The Financial Services Commission announced on August 13 that it will refund the difference in credit card processing fees to approximately 161,000 newly identified small and micro merchants among new business operators in the first half of this year.

According to the Financial Services Commission, 161,000 merchants that opened as new credit card merchants in the first half of this year and were initially subject to the standard merchant fee rate, but have now been confirmed to qualify as small and micro merchants based on their sales volume, will receive a retroactive application of the preferential fee rate. Each credit card company will refund the fee difference (previously paid fee minus the preferential fee) to the payment account of the respective merchant. The refunds are scheduled to be completed by September 26. The total refund amount for the 161,000 merchants is expected to be approximately KRW 65.15 billion, or about KRW 400,000 per merchant.

In addition, 148,000 sub-merchants of payment gateway providers, who opened in the first half of the year and were initially subject to the standard merchant fee rate but have now been confirmed to qualify as small and micro merchants based on their sales volume, as well as 5,505 individual and corporate taxi operators who process card payments through transportation settlement operators, will also receive a retroactive application of the preferential fee rate. The fee difference will be refunded through each payment gateway provider and transportation settlement operator.

The Financial Services Commission explained that, starting from August 14, a total of 3,068,000 small and micro credit card merchants (95.7% of all 3,205,000 merchants) will be subject to the preferential fee rate. The Credit Finance Association began sending out notices to eligible credit card merchants at their business locations on August 8. Each merchant can also check the applicable fee rate through the Credit Finance Association, each credit card company's call center, or the 'Integrated Merchant Sales Transaction Information Inquiry System.'

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