Preferential Fees for 2.7 Million Small and Micro Card Merchants in the First Half of the Year

About 75% of Merchants Selected for Preferential Fee Rates Are Small Businesses
From the 31st, Small Businesses Will Be Charged 0.8% for Credit Cards and 0.5% for Debit Cards

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyo-jin] The Financial Services Commission announced on the 22nd that it will apply preferential fee rates to a total of 2,701,000 small and micro credit card merchants in the first half of this year.

About 75% of the selected merchants this time, 2,112,000 places, are micro merchants with annual sales of 300 million KRW or less. 21%, or 589,000 places, are small merchants with annual sales exceeding 1 billion KRW but not exceeding 3 billion KRW.

For micro merchants, a credit card fee rate of 0.8% and a check card fee rate of 0.5% will be applied starting from the 31st. For small merchants, credit card fee rates ranging from 1.3% to 1.6% and check card fee rates ranging from 1.0% to 1.3% will be applied depending on sales scale.

The Credit Finance Association plans to send notices regarding the application of preferential fee rates to merchant business sites starting from the 28th.

The applied fee rates can also be checked at the Credit Finance Association call center or through the 'Merchant Sales Transaction Information Integrated Inquiry System.'

Provided by the Financial Services Commission

The financial authorities will also apply preferential fee rates to online operators and individual taxi operators who collect card payments through PG or transportation settlement operators, even if they are not credit card merchants.

This applies to 779,000 online operators and 164,000 individual taxi operators. They can check the application of preferential fee rates through PG or transportation settlement operators.

Meanwhile, those who were newly registered as credit card merchants in the second half of last year and received the industry average fee rate but have now been selected as micro or small merchants can receive a refund of the fee difference.

Those who registered as new merchants in the second half of last year but closed their business by early this year are also eligible for refunds. If the business site no longer exists and no notice was sent, related information can be checked through the 'Merchant Sales Transaction Information Integrated Inquiry System' starting from March 12.

The total refund scale is expected to be 45.2 billion KRW for credit card fees, 12.7 billion KRW for check card fees, totaling approximately 58 billion KRW. The average refund amount per eligible merchant is expected to be about 280,000 KRW. About 67% of the total refunds are expected to be returned to micro merchants.