Additional fees may soon be charged by merchants to customers who pay by credit card following the class action settlement with Visa and Mastercard, but Quebec SMEs will not be able to take advantage of this service.
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Businesses will have this option as of October 6 in order to be able to offset the costs generated by this type of transaction, but not in Quebec due to the Consumer Protection Act.
However, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) would like these regulations to change so that Quebec businesses are on the same footing as Canadian companies.
“It is necessary to modernize the Consumer Protection Act in order to adapt it to today’s context,” said François Vincent, vice-president for Quebec at the CFIB, in a press release on Wednesday. This is a priority file that we want to discuss with the next Minister of Justice after the formation of the new Council of Ministers.
According to him, this charging of additional fees could help small merchants to meet the rapidly growing operating costs.
Not so popular with SMEs
Only one in five merchants would plan to charge their customers additional fees, a rate that rises to 26% if their competitors and suppliers plan to do so, according to a recent CFIB survey.
Nearly 40% have not yet made any decisions and 15% indicated that they have no intention of doing so.
“Many small business owners are frustrated with the high costs of processing credit card transactions because it can eat away 1.5% to 2.5% from each sale. This explains why 35% of small business owners encourage their customers to use other payment methods,” said Jasmin Guénette, vice-president of national affairs at the CFIB.
The survey was conducted September 1-8, 2022 with 3,914 CFIB members.