Amex merchant service fees coming down

The rationale for American Express companion card issuance is that Amex can offer better rewards because it is able to pass on those costs in the form of higher merchant service fees. But maybe not forever.

American Express and Diners were left out of the Reserve Bank's interchange regulation, which cut Visa and MasterCard merchant service fees in half.

The latest Reserve Bank data on merchant fees for credit and charge cards, released yesterday, shows that Visa and MasterCard are charging merchants 0.82 per cent of the value of a transaction, while Amex is charging two per cent and Diners is charging 2.1 per cent.

However, the Visa and MasterCard fees have been stable for the past two years, while the Amex fee has continued to fall.

When the Visa and MasterCard merchant service fee settled at 0.82 per cent in June 2007 Amex was charging 2.17 per cent.

This raises questions about whether Amex will face pressure to keep cutting its fee and whether the banks' companion card strategies will work long term.

Commonwealth Bank head of cards Stephen Karpin said the Amex charge was levelling off. He said he was confident that Amex's pricing structure would allow it to continue offering higher points.