Terry KS KUALA LUMPUR: MasterCard Asia Pacific Pte Ltd Malaysia and Brunei vice president and senior country manager Jim Cheah expected more merchants will realize the benefits of adopting electronic payment and a complete cashless society will be formed soon.
Besides helps merchant to reduce operational costs, electronic payment is secure and also provide convenience to the consumers as well as awarding them with bonus points offered by financial institutions which can be used to redeem free gifts, Jim said.
He reminded that the merchant should look at the benefits of accepting plastic payment instead of be unduly focused on the interchange fees, also known as swipe fees charged.
The credit card firms’ contractual clauses stipulate that the merchants have to absorb the swipe fees and not requesting their customers to pay for it but credit card firms are not able to restrain the merchants on this practice, due to recent antitrust settlement case by Visa and MasterCard in the U.S., he added.
The recent antitrust settlement would be the largest antitrust settlement in the U.S. history. It would resolve a seven-year-old lawsuit accusing Visa and MasterCard of conspiring with major banks to artificially inflate swipe fees that involving credit and debit cards.
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