Irish farmers buying stock in marts are expected to benefit from a decision made by Visa to reduce its fees in business debit card transactions.
The move by Visa will see the fees money farmers are charged in debit card transaction fees fall from the current 0.3% charge to 0.2% until September 1.
From September on, it is understood that the Visa debit card fee will be capped at €1 per transaction for secure payment options, which include chip and pin and online security verification payments.
It is also understood that the transaction fee for non-secure payments will be capped at €2 per transaction.
The decision by Visa has been welcomed by the Irish Co-operative Society (ICOS).
The umbrella group representing co-ops said that it has held extensive meetings with Irish banks around the ‘prohibitive’ charges for farmers using business debit cards to buy cattle at marts nationwide.
According to ICOS, the change will safe farmers money. It shows that a farmer buying €10,000 worth of stock will see the transaction fees drop from €30 to €1 with the introduction of the new fees.
ICOS National Marts Executive, Ray Doyle said that ICOS is pleased with the proactive approach taken by Visa and the Irish banks.
Doyle also said that the new rates will be of benefit to marts, farmers and all Visa business customers.
Anything that can reduce costs for farmers is welcome at what is an overall difficult time for agriculture in general.
“This will also help marts to reduce their volume cheque payments which carry a business processing fee of €1.20 per cheque cashed running into costs of thousands of euro for marts nationwide,” he said.