As the disclosure scope for electronic financial service payment fees expanded, card and prepaid payment fee rates were shown to have declined slightly.
According to the Financial Services Commission on the 12th, payment fee rates at 17 companies subject to disclosure from Aug. to Oct. last year were 1.97% for cards and 1.76% for prepaid. Compared with the disclosure for 11 companies from Feb. to Jul. last year, card fees fell by 0.06 percentage points (P) and prepaid by 0.09 P, respectively.
Earlier, the financial authorities decided to gradually expand the subjects and items for disclosure by electronic financial service providers. Previously, only companies with a monthly average of at least 100 billion won in simple payment transaction volume were subject to disclosure, but this was expanded to those with a total payment volume, including general payments and simple payments, of at least 500 billion won per month. Accordingly, the disclosed payment volume expanded from a monthly average of 40.7 trillion won across 11 companies to 30.8 trillion won across 17 companies. The system that disclosed only total fees by payment method was also changed to disclose fees separately for externally collected and internally collected fees.
The financial authorities introduced a disclosure system for simple payment fees in Mar. 2023 to encourage fee competition in the market. However, it was criticized for having a limited number of companies subject to disclosure and for disclosing only total payment fees, which limited comparability. In response, guidelines for classification management and disclosure of electronic financial service provider fees were revised in Nov. last year, and fee rates for Aug. to Oct. last year were to be disclosed on a pilot basis.
As a result of the expanded disclosure, some electronic financial service providers were found not to comply with the guidelines, such as uniformly charging fees regardless of merchant sales size or imposing higher fees on merchants with smaller sales.
The financial authorities said, "Taking into account the intent of co-prosperity with small business owners, we plan to guide a fee-setting structure so that payment fees are imposed reasonably and to improve the guidelines while continuing to communicate with the industry," adding, "We will push ahead with system improvements to ease the burden of payment fees without disruption and continue to enhance the transparency and comparability of fee information."