KUALA LUMPUR – Major banks and selected non-bank financial service providers, who manage 75% of businesses currently accepting DuitNow QR payments, will continue to waive the transaction fee for micro and small businesses accepting such payments, said Bank Negara Malaysia.
In a statement, it said businesses using DuitNow QR as a payment method do not need to incur recurring costs for point-of-sales (POS) terminal rental for card-based payment channels or additional overhead and administrative costs for handling cash payments.
The regulator added that individual customers will not pay additional charges for using DuitNow QR to make payments.
According to Bank Negara, the DuitNow QR transaction fee is intended to cover costs and investments needed by the industry to upkeep their payment systems, including cybersecurity and fraud prevention controls, in order to maintain the high service and security standards for payment services.
According to SME Corp, micro businesses have fewer than five employees and yearly sales revenue below RM300,000, or per day average sales turnover of RM800 and below.
Small businesses under services and other sectors have sales turnover not exceeding RM20 million, or full-time employees not exceeding 75 workers.
“In addition, PayNet will allocate resources to help defray the costs incurred by acquirers that continue to offer full waivers to micro and small businesses accepting DuitNow QR payments,” said Bank Negara, referring to Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd, which is the DuitNow QR system operator.
Previously, the DuitNow QR transaction fee was waived from 2019, to end on October 1, 2023.
It was reported that merchants have to pay 0.25% of the DuitNow QR transaction value, with the fee increasing to 0.5% if the transaction is performed using a credit card.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said charges imposed on vendors for payments through DuitNow QR will not affect the lower-income group. But he did not specify the parameters behind the mechanism in defining those in the lower-income group. – September 29, 2023