From 14th, Preferential Fees for 3.08 Million Card Merchants with Annual Sales of 3 Billion Won or Less

Refund of Fees for New Merchants Opened in the Second Half of Last Year

The Financial Services Commission announced on the 12th that, starting on the 14th, it will apply preferential merchant fee rates to 3,087,000 credit card merchants that have been designated as small and micro merchants for the first half of the year.

As a result, 95.7% of all 3,225,000 credit card merchants will be subject to the preferential fee rates for the first half. The same preferential rates will also be applied to 1,938,000 sub-merchants of payment gateway (PG) companies and 166,000 individual and corporate taxi operators.

Depending on their annual sales, merchants will be charged preferential fees of 0.4% to 1.45% for credit cards and 0.15% to 1.15% for debit cards.

Specifically, 2,325,000 micro merchants with annual sales of 300 million won or less will be charged fees of 0.4% for credit cards and 0.15% for debit cards. For 287,000 merchants with annual sales of more than 300 million won and up to 500 million won, fees of 1% for credit cards and 0.75% for debit cards will be applied.

In addition, 281,000 merchants with annual sales of more than 500 million won and up to 1 billion won will be charged 1.15% for credit cards and 0.9% for debit cards, while 194,000 merchants with annual sales of more than 1 billion won and up to 3 billion won will be charged 1.45% for credit cards and 1.15% for debit cards.

Furthermore, preferential fee rates will be applied retroactively to 159,000 merchants that opened in the second half of last year and had been subject to general merchant fee rates, but have since been confirmed, based on their sales, to fall under the categories of micro and small merchants.

Each card company plans to refund the difference in fees to the merchants' designated settlement accounts by the 31st of next month. The refund will be made by returning the difference between the fees already paid and the recalculated amount based on the preferential rates.

The total expected refund for the 159,000 eligible merchants is 64.33 billion won, averaging about 410,000 won per merchant. The refund amounts can be checked through the integrated merchant sales transaction information inquiry system of the Credit Finance Association. Detailed information such as daily and per-transaction refund amounts can also be viewed on each card company's website.

The Credit Finance Association has notified the credit card merchants eligible for refunds of both the application of preferential fee rates and whether they will receive a refund.

Approximately 143,000 sub-merchants of PG companies and about 5,325 taxi operators that opened in the second half of last year will also receive retroactive application of the preferential fee rates. These merchants can receive refunds of the fee differences through their current PG companies and transportation settlement operators.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.