Surcharge

Payment brands, such as card schemes and debit network providers, charge a fee for accepting payments on their payment network. Usually, businesses include the costs for payment fees in the prices they charge. But in some countries/regions it is common to pass on these costs as a surcharge when the customer makes a payment.

Requirements

Before you begin, take into account the following requirements, limitations, and preparations.

How it works

After the surcharge amounts and/or percentages are configured:

1. You make a payment request like you normally do. There are no special parameters required to trigger the surcharge.

2. The screen shows the purchase amount and instructs the customer to present their card.

3. Based on the card that the customer presents, the terminal calculates the surcharge using the surcharge amounts and/or percentages you configured.

4. If configured, the terminal shows a confirmation screen with the total amount of the payment, the surcharge amount, and the card scheme that the extra fee is charged for.

   In a Tap to Pay integration, the mobile device doesn't show a confirmation screen. The surcharge is applied automatically.

   

5. On the terminal, the customer selects the Confirm key to accept, and the payment is processed. The payment response shows the surcharge amount in the TotalFeesAmount field.

   If the customer doesn't accept the surcharge and selects the Cancel key, the whole transaction is cancelled.

Skipping the confirmation screen

It takes a bit of time for the customer to review the confirmation screen with the surcharge details. To avoid this delay in the payment flow, you can configure a setting to hide this screen. For Tap to Pay transactions that include surcharges, the confirmations screen doesn't show.

The flow will then be:

1. You make a payment request like you normally do.
2. The customer completes the payment.
3. Based on the card that the customer presents, the terminal calculates the surcharge and adds it to the payment amount during the authorization.

Configure surcharges

The payment acceptance fee that you pay depends on the payment method brand (scheme), funding source (credit or debit), currency, and the country/region that issued the payment method (domestic or international). Therefore, the surcharge that you pass on to the customer must be specific for the combination of brand, funding source, currency, and country/region.

The surcharge fee can be a fixed amount for each transaction, a percentage of the sum of the purchase amount and the tip, or both.

To configure surcharges:

1. Check the current surcharge configuration (if any) by making a GET request to the /terminalSettings endpoint for the company account, merchant account, store or terminal, and checking the surcharge object.

2. Create an overview of all surcharges that you want to apply. For example:

   Brand	Funding source	Country/region	Currency	Percentage	Amount
   eftpos			AUD	(none)	AUD 0.10
   Mastercard	Credit		AUD	1.2 %	AUD 1
   Mastercard	Debit		AUD	0.58 %	(none)
   Visa	Credit or Debit	AU, NZ	AUD	0.63 %	(none)
   Visa	Credit or Debit		AUD	1.63 %	(none)
   American Express	Credit		AUD	1.5 %	AUD 1.2

   Specifying the country field inside the configurations object applies the surcharge settings only to payment methods issued in that country/region. If not specified, the surcharge applies to all payment methods that meet the rest of the conditions.

3. Make a PATCH request to the /terminalSettings endpoint for the company account, merchant account, store or terminal.
   In the request body, specify a surcharge object with the following properties:

   Parameter	Data type	Description
   askConfirmation	Boolean	Indicates whether to show (true) or hide (false) the surcharge confirmation screen on the terminal.
   configurations	Array[Object]	List of payment methods for which to apply surcharges with the details per payment method. The order of different surcharge objects inside the configurations array impacts the order of execution. The condition that is met first is executed without checking the rest of the configuration.

   In the configurations object, specify:

   Parameter	Required	Description
   brand		A payment method supported for Management API, for example eftpos_australia or mc.
   currencies		An object with: currency code: the three-character ISO currency code. percentage: surcharge percentage per transaction up to two decimal places. For example, 1% or 2.27%. amount: surcharge amount per transaction, in minor units.
   sources		Can be: Credit or Debit. If not specified, the currencies settings apply to all possible funding sources for the brand.
   country		The country/region where the specified payment method has been issued. If used, the surcharge settings only apply to the payment method issued in that country/region.

   The response returns all terminal settings at the level where you made the request.

4. (Optional) Ask our Support Team to configure single tap. When this feature is enabled, the customer doesn't need to present their contactless card again after the terminal has calculated the total amount.

   When accepting payments with surcharges using Tap to Pay on a mobile device, only single tap flow is available.

If you need help

If you cannot use Management API to configure the surcharge feature yourself:

1. Make an overview of surcharges as described under Configure surcharges.
2. Contact our Support Team and ask them to:
   • Configure the surcharge feature according to your overview.
   • Enable or disable skipping the confirmation screen.
   • (Optional) Configure single tap.

See also