|
|
Seventy-eight percent of Canadian business owners are unable to afford credit-card processing fees, according to a new survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
“While credit card processing fees for some in-store transactions have come down in recent years, this has been more than offset by the massive growth in higher costs for e-commerce transactions and the shift away from cash” during the COVID era, Dan Kelly, CFIB president, said in a statement announcing the survey.
The survey found that:
- 92 percent of businesses now accept debit and credit cards;
- 55 percent started accepting or increased their acceptance of contactless payment methods;
- 33 percent started accepting or increased their acceptance of online payment methods;
- 53 percent decreased or stopped accepting cash as payment.
“Consumer preferences are leading more businesses to adopt digital payment methods, but many of them come with significant processing fees,” Corinne Pohlmann, CFIB’s vice-president of National Affairs, said in a comment quoted by Canadian Newswire.
“Some of these costs will inevitably be passed down to consumers, but businesses also worry about pricing themselves out of their markets,” she said.
Fifty-four percent of businesses surveyed do not clearly understand their contract with their payment processor and 41 percent are not sure how fees are set.
CFIB is urging Canada’s government and payment processors to cut fees for processing digital payments, equalize the fee structure between large and small businesses, mandate simpler and consistent language in contracts from payment processors, and abolish processing fees on the sales tax portion of a transaction.
TREND FORECAST: In the new Metaverse World of high-tech, anything goes… a new credit card payment system for businesses offering better rates and higher quality service above the current systems, will be a mega-billion OnTrendpreneur® opportunity of the 21st century.