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 it is common to pass on these costs as a surcharge when the customer makes a payment.

How it works

To apply payment surcharges, you first have to configure the surcharge amounts and/or percentages.

After the surcharges are configured:

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

2. The payment terminal shows the purchase amount and prompts the customer to present their card.

3. Based on the card that the customer presents, the terminal calculates the surcharge using the surcharge logic you configured.

4. The terminal shows a confirmation screen with the total amount of the payment (sum of the purchase amount, tip, and surcharge), the surcharge amount, and the card scheme that the extra fee is charged for.

   

5. 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.

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 authorisation.

Configure surcharges

The payment acceptance fee that you pay depends on the payment method brand, funding source (credit or debit), and currency. Thus, the surcharge that you pass on must be specific for the combination of brand, funding source, and currency.

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

To set up surcharges, use our Management API as follows:

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

   Brand	Funding source	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	AUD	0.63 %	(none)
   American Express	Credit	AUD	1.5 %	AUD 1.2

2. (Optional) To see what surcharges have already been configured, make a GET request to the /terminalSettings endpoint for the company account, merchant account, store or terminal, and check the surcharge object.

3. To configure surcharges, make a PATCH request to the /terminalSettings endpoint for the account, store, or terminal.
   Possible endpoints:

   • PATCH /companies/{companyId}/terminalSettings
   • PATCH /merchants/{merchantId}/terminalSettings
   • PATCH /stores/{storeId}/terminalSettings
   • PATCH /terminals/{terminalId}/terminalSettings

   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	List of all the brands that you want to apply surcharges for. Each list item consists of: brand (Required): one of the payment methods available in Management API. sources: an array with the funding source, either Credit or Debit. If not specified, the currencies settings apply to all possible funding sources for the brand. currencies (Required): an array with the three-character currency code (Required) and the surcharge percentage and/or amount. The percentage can have two decimal places, and the amount is specified in minor units.

   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.

If you need help

If you can't 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