(25 July 2012 – United Kingdom) The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned on credit and debit card processing charges as it reports more customers are turning toward alternate payment methods such as PayPal.Non-card methods, mainly e-payment systems such as PayPal, Google Checkout and Amazon Payments, were used in 150 million transactions, worth £1.2 billion (A$1.8 billion), last year, according to BRC figures.
The numbers are actually a tiny fraction of the total 9.4 billion transactions, worth £178 billion, covered by the group’s survey, dwarfed by those for cash and credit and debit cards.
Emerging payment types such as PayPal are set to be accepted by half of all retailers by the end of this year, compared to just a third in 2011, the BRC says.
This is ‘very significant’ for both retailers and banks because the average cost to a merchant of having a credit or charge card payment processed is 36.2 pence (A50 cents), for a debit card 9.6 pence, but for non-card methods just 7.9 pence.