merchants not accepting payments by card

mirosko wrote:

I was wondering why so many places here still don't accept payments by card. Malta presents itself as a hub of new technologies, crypto currencies etc but I have never seen so many places refusing card payments in other comparable civilized countries.
I was thinking it must be because maltese banks are charging the merchants too high fees but then I found out that this is regulated by European commission since 2015 and the fees are set for 0.2% for debit card and 0.3% for credit card.  I thought Malta could be just ignoring this but it is even officially on central bank of malta's website - https://www.centralbankmalta.org/ifr
So are the shop owners seriously refusing cards because they don't want to pay 1 cent fee for every 5E spent? Most of the shops have the eftops machines but accept cards only when customers spend something like 10-15E and more, what sense does it make when the fees are a percentage of the sum and not set.
Am I missing something? Anybody has an insight on this?
Thanks

One reason may be that it is time consuming, 1c on €5.00 is not much but if the transaction takes 10 times longer then it is not cost efficient.
I for one will not queue behind someone who wants to pay by card for 1 cup of coffee or an odd item in a supermarket, I will go and spend my money elsewhere rather than queue behind a person who can't be bothered to go and draw cash and pay with it for small purchases.
They are showing that they do not care about keeping other people waiting!

disagree, from my experience the card payment takes same time as a cash payment and when using a touch free card it is always faster. A lot of times they are not familiar with the touch free feature though and they still insert the card and make you enter your PIN which is taking everyone's time

Also they refuse it even when there is nobody else in the shop and there is no queue...so this is not the reason

You incorrectly interpret the law. Citing the law:
"Interchange fees are usually applied between the card-acquiring payment service providers and the card-issuing payment service providers belonging to a certain payment card scheme. Interchange fees are a main part of the fees charged to merchants by acquiring payment service providers for every card-based payment transaction".
So merchant fees are not 0.2% or 0.3% they are higher and not regulated. Interchange fees were regulated due to nearly duopoly of VISA and MC. But merchant fees are free competition of PSP/acquiring banks.
Also cap of 0.2 and 0.3% apply only for Intra-EEA trxs. International trx are not regulated and you have to accept all card (not only issued in EEA).
So Merchant fees are much higher.

Also it is easier to hide turnovers from tax authorities if it in cash :-). Not sure if it popular in Malta .

I see, that's probably it. There is an interesting link on the topic I found http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publica … 003_en.pdf
So I wonder how much do merchants pay in total then, roughly....any shop owner reading this?

Somply merchants want cadh to be able tp avoid taxation. If they font offer you a VAT recript please adk for it. The receipt is proof thst they have charged it on the govt. owned VAT cash register which has a hard drive record for tax collectors to check. Card purchases are easily traceable.
Yours aye Prof. S J Newton

You hit the nail on the head with the comment they are avoiding paying tax, however they charge it and put it in their pocket