Television programme website Kassa picked up on the news that supermarkets will further encourage the use of the debit-card for small value payments at the point of sale. The news comes about one year after the publication of the Mckinsey report on profits/loss in the Dutch retail payment sector.
The basic idea is that retailers stop charging a fee at the point of sale. This happens in 1 out of 5 shops, where the retailer charges 10 to 25 eurocents for the cost of debit-card payments, which actually cost them 5 cents to have it processed by the bank. So already one year ago, during the publication of the McKinsey results, the Dutch central bank suggested to remove those signs at the counter that announce the debit-card surcharge to the consumer.
At that point in time, the retailers did not wish to let go of this revenue source. But now, with all kinds of cheap POS-package offers and subsidies available to retailers, it is a good thing that they now publicly subscribe to the insight that cash payments may look cheaper than they really are (with all handling and checking labour involved). And that it does indeed make sense to not charge for debit-cards payments the point of sale.
