Analysts expected credit card firms to reduce marketing spending as their profit will be reduced by the fee cut. (image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Credit-card commission fees for small merchants will be lowered starting next month as the government seeks to ease financial burdens on self-employed business owners, according to officials at credit-card firms Monday.
Starting in February, credit-card processing fees for small merchants with an annual revenue of between 500 million won (US$447,347) and 1 billion won will be lowered by 0.65 percentage point to 1.4 percent per transaction.
For merchants with an average revenue of between 1 billion won and 3 billion won, credit-card processing fees will be cut by 0.61 percentage point to 1.6 percent per transaction.
The cut in credit-card processing fees is expected to benefit about 2.5 million merchants with annual revenues of 3 billion won or less, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC).
According to a report by the FSC, small merchants with annual revenue of between 500 million won and 1 billion won are expected to save 219.7 billion won per year, thanks to the fee cut.
For merchants with average revenue of between 1 billion won and 3 billion won, they are expected to save 200.1 billion won per year, the report showed.
Analysts expected credit card firms to reduce marketing spending as their profit will be reduced by the fee cut.
(Yonhap)
