The Federal Government is stirring up banks and merchants over "concerns about credit card surcharges and non-transparent transaction fees", requesting a study from the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council.The Government has asked the CCAAC to "provide advice as to the prevalence of merchants applying surcharges or fees that appear excessive and where they hide the true cost of goods and services where a surcharge or fee is a significant amount of the total cost."Under regulations introduced by the Reserve Bank of Australia this year, merchants have a right to recover their card acceptance costs through a surcharge. The "reasonable cost of acceptance" includes the merchant service fee charged by the merchant's acquiring bank and some additional costs.Banks, in theory, should already be working with merchants to patrol cases of egregious surcharges.The CCAAC has been asked to provide its report to the Assistant Treasurer by the end of July.