Bank Negara Malaysia has assured that micro small businesses will not be imposed the Merchant Discount Rate and no new cost for individual customers.
The Central Bank issued the statement following an uproar from businesses and the public who were fearful of the charges which could see more pressure on the wallet. The main service offered by Duitnow QR payments managed by Paynet had recently announced the fees charged for every transaction, it will take effect from 1 October 2023, following the end of a temporary fee waiver introduced in 2019.
BNM defended the charges adding that the transaction fee is intended to cover costs and investments needed by the industry to upkeep their payment systems, including cybersecurity and fraud prevention controls, in order to maintain the high service and security standards for payment services.
It said DuitNow QR remains an affordable and cost-effective payment method. For individual customers, the usage of DuitNow QR to make payments will not attract any additional charges. For businesses, any transaction fee imposed on
QR payments remain as low as, or lower than, fees imposed on payments by credit or debit cards
The transaction fee applicable for business merchants is known as the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR), which is a common fee associated with the provision of electronic payment services. It is charged based on a percentage of the payment transaction value to cover processing costs. A business merchant would receive the payment made by their customers after deducting the MDR. Currently, debit and credit card payments also incur MDRs. Acquirers are banks or non-bank financial service providers that provide merchant acquiring services that enable businesses, including micro and small businesses, to accept electronic payments for the sale of goods and services to their customers.
The benefits of DuitNow QR as a payment method are that merchants do not need to incur recurring costs for POS terminal rental for card-based payment channels or additional overhead and administrative costs for handling cash payments.
Major banks and selected non-bank financial service providers, who manage 75% of businesses currently accepting DuitNow QR payments, have announced that they will continue to waive the transaction fee for micro and small businesses accepting DuitNow QR payments.
PayNet has agreed to allocate resources to help defray the costs incurred by acquirers that continue to offer full waivers to micro and small businesses accepting DuitNow QR payments.
