Much touted surcharge ban 'remains the Government's intention', Nicola Willis says, despite waning support

The surcharge ban is back on the table - at least it is intended to be, Finance Minister Nicola Willis told media on Wednesday after months of uncertainty about the promise. 

This is despite National's lack of backing from coalition partner ACT, while its other coalition partner, NZ First, thought in February it was going nowhere.

"It still remains the Government's intention to get rid of those Paywave fees," Willis told RNZ, "but the Minister [of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Cameron Brewer] is working through the questions that were raised, in particular by small businesses and retailers who pointed out that it is more challenging for them to remove those fees than it is for some of the bigger businesses..."

There was a possibility of Labour, who proposed amendments to the Bill, potentially giving its support, however on RNZ Labour Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni described the policy as "mismanaged", adding Labour's suggested change "could have been a way forward". 

"Now they're in a position where their coalition partner is not supporting them."

Brewer recently took over the commerce and consumer affairs portfolio from Scott Simpson, and inherited the Retail Payment System (Ban on Merchant Surcharges) Amendment Bill.

The Bill was first announced by Simpson in July last year and it was expected to be in place by May this year. It hit an impasse in February. And in March, ACT leader David Seymour told interest.co.nz his party had pulled its support and put up a counter proposal.

Willis said; "a lot of issues were raised about that bill at select committee, and in fact across the House there were questions asked about how it would be put into place and how it would work."

"So the Minister is now working through those issues, it is important that is all taken into account."

"In the meantime, what we have seen is the interchange fees retailers are charged for those Paywave systems have been reduced by more than half due to the Commerce Commission's intervention. So that should mean retailers aren't having to charge as high surcharges as they [have] in the past."