Retail association urges govt to cut card fees

The China Chain Store and Franchise Association urged the government to cut bank card-swipe fees charged to merchants as soon as possible in order to shore up consumption, the Beijing Times reported on Monday.

The CCFA said that commercial banks should not postpone cutting the card-swipe fees.

The proposal to cut the fees was originally approved in May by the State Council. In August, the State Council again published a document with new suggestions on the matter, which were also approved.

However, the plan has not been implemented yet, and many companies have lost confidence in the policy, the CCFA statement said.

The dispute over commission fees between retailers and commercial banks has been around for a long time.

Transactions made with bank cards are growing at an annual rate of 30 percent, and make up 35 percent of all supermarket transactions and more than 60 percent of all sales in stores, according to a survey conducted by the CCFA.

Fees charged to supermarkets and stores for transactions made with cards range from 0.5 percent to 1 percent of the transaction value. Meanwhile, Chinese merchants are seeing their operational costs growing at an annual rate of more than 15 percent and their average profit margin is around 2 percent, the survey said.