KUALA LUMPUR – Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) has confirmed that merchants will be charged a transaction fee for payments received through the DuitNow QR code platform beginning October 1.
In a statement on the matter, PayNet, the operator of DuitNow QR, clarified that the fee follows the lifting of a waiver on the merchant discount rate (MDR), which is charged based on a percentage of the payment transaction value.
“A merchant would receive the payment made by their customers after deducting the MDR. At present, debit and credit card payments incur MDRs whereas there is (an) MDR waiver on QR payments.
“From October 1, this MDR waiver for DuitNow QR payments will be lifted.”
Explaining that the MDR was waived during the QR payment introductory period in 2019 to incentivise adoption of the payment method, PayNet said that the waiver was further extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is neither a new nor an additional fee. Instead, October 1 is the end of the MDR waiver that was supposed to have been done over nine months ago.”
PayNet also recommended for merchants to consult their banks or third-party acquirers to confirm whether or not they will be impacted by the waiver-lifting, as several banks and third-party acquirers intend to either continue to defer imposing MDR or absorb it for smaller businesses.
Besides noting that the collected MDR will be utilised to cover the upkeep of its network and costs incurred by banks as well as third-party acquirers for onboarding merchants, PayNet stressed that the 50 sen fee for transactions above RM5,000 is unrelated to the matter.
“The 50 sen fee for transactions exceeding RM5,000 is for peer-to-peer fund transfers from a personal QR to another personal QR, not payments to merchants,” it said.
“This is completely unrelated to the first mentioned QR payments to a merchant and under no circumstances will both fees be imposed for the same transaction.
“It is inaccurate to state that the 50 sen fee is charged for payments made to merchants. It is also incorrect to claim that MDR is charged for fund transfers using personal QR codes.”
Addressing concerns that MDRs will be passed on to consumers, PayNet pointed out that purchases using debit and credit cards are already subject to MDR.
“Products and services purchased with credit or debit cards are priced the same as cash purchases.
“Likewise, we do not foresee prices of goods and services to be affected by purchases using DuitNow QR after MDR is imposed.”
Previously, it was reported that transaction fees will be imposed on merchants who receive payments via DuitNow from November 1.
According to a screenshot posted by a Twitter user on the social media site, the RHB Reflex platform had sent out an email informing its users that the fee would be automatically deducted from users’ current or savings account on the fifth day of each subsequent month. – September 28, 2023