ABTA has been making the case to government that although this regulation applies to all industries, it is a particular problem for travel firms due to the high value of transactions and that regulation designed to reduce the costs of taking card payments has not been effective – leaving travel companies picking up the bill for these payments.
ABTA is currently analysing data from our Members on the level of their costs and will share this evidence with Government to demonstrate the impact the ban on card charges will have on the industry.
Alan Wardle Director of Public Affairs said: “We have been talking to the Government and regulators about the serious difficulties this will cause the travel industry.
“While there is no way of reversing the ban on charging card fee, we are asking government to launch an urgent review into the card payments market. We know from speaking to our Members that card payment costs have not gone down, as was the original intention with the legislation, as although the interchange fee has reduced for credit cards, this is only one element of the overall charge to traders and, in many cases, those other fees have increased.
“We will use the data collated from our Members about the real level of fees that are levied by card companies to help us make the case to Government that an urgent review of the card payment market is needed.”
The new regulations just apply to consumer cards, businesses will still be able to charge corporate customers a fee for paying by corporate credit or debit card.
