We were pleased to see that we are not the only ones (see here) who note with a jaundiced eye the monthly promulgations from VISA,MASTERCARD and the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI). We are fully aware that for those of us in the service industry, cash is still an incredibly important method of payment for goods and services in all of our members stores.
The next meeting of the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) Cost of Business Advisory Forum is focusing on Banking, Payments and Financial Services. CSNA has been invited to submit our views on this subject and welcomes the input of members.
Transaction fees, Merchant service charges and banking charges all have the ability to affect your bottom line- can you assist in quantifying please.
We are also interested to learn about your experiences with payment processing ( card payment fees, settlement times and digital wallets) as well as your history of interactions with banks and the call centres for addressing queries.
Last but not least, if you have any ideas on how the whole area of banking and financial services for our SME sector can be improved, please let us know.
The use of cash in our sector will shortly be ring-fenced as obligatory to accept- while there are many societal reasons for this, it cannot be seen by the banks ,including the Central Bank, or the Department of Finance as a policy that doesn’t require cast iron guarantees against cost and fees increases.
We REALLY NEED your views. Thank you.
info@csna.ie
