The Financial Services Commission announced on the 13th that it will refund the fee difference to approximately 161,000 newly identified small and medium-sized credit card merchants among new businesses established in the first half of this year. According to the Financial Services Commission, these 161,000 merchants initially opened as new credit card merchants this year and were applied a general merchant fee rate. However, since their sales have been confirmed to fit within the small and medium-sized merchant category, they will have the preferential fee rate retroactively applied. Each credit card company will refund the fee difference (previously paid fee minus the preferential fee) to the payment accounts of these merchants. This refund process is expected to be completed before the 26th of next month.
The total refund amount for these 161,000 merchants is approximately 65.15 billion won, which means an average of about 400,000 won per merchant. Additionally, there are 148,000 sub-merchants associated with payment processing companies and 5,505 individual and corporate taxi operators who make card payments through transportation settlement operators that were initially applied a general fee rate. These entities will also have the preferential fee rate retroactively applied, and the fee difference will be refunded through their respective payment processing companies and transportation settlement operators.
The Financial Services Commission explained that starting from the 14th, there are 3.068 million small and medium-sized credit card merchants (accounting for 95.7% of the total 3.205 million) that will have the preferential fee rate applied. The Credit Finance Association has been sending out notifications to eligible credit card merchants since the 8th. Each merchant can also verify the applicable fee rate through the Credit Finance Association, each card company’s call center, or the ‘Integrated Merchant Transaction Information Inquiry System’.