Consumers are paying surcharges on only a small number of card payments, the Reserve Bank of Australia has found.The RBA's latest consumer payments survey provides a rare insight into the frequency and value of card surcharges.Respondents said they paid surcharges on 4.1 per cent of their card payments. The median value of surcharges paid was 1.8 per cent. The median for payments using Visa and MasterCard was 1.5 per cent and the median for payments using American Express and Diners was two per cent."Based on other information about the range of merchant service fees, surcharges up to around these levels would not seem obviously at odds with the card acceptance costs of many merchants," the RBA said."However, card surcharges were distributed across a relatively wide range, with a small proportion of reported surcharges being 10 per cent or more of the payment value."While two per cent of card payments at the point of sale involved a surcharge, 13 per cent of remote card payments involved a surcharge. The survey provides no information about situations where a consumer switched away from a card payment or purchased from an alternative vendor due to a surcharge.However, the RBA said: "Alternatives to cards for remote payments may have been more limited or more difficult to use compared to at the point of sale, where cash is typically a surcharge free alternative."Further, merchant acceptance costs may have been higher in the case of merchants that receive online payments."A surcharge was paid on 6.9 per cent of Visa and MasterCard card payments, and on 4.8 per cent of American Express and Diners Club payments."This result would be consistent with American Express and Diners Club cardholders finding it relatively easy to switch to an alternative payment method when faced with a surcharge."Around one quarter of all card surcharges were in relation to bill payments.The RBA has been under fire for not implementing effective measures to eliminate excessive surcharging. Last year it allowed the card scheme to change their rules to limit surcharging to the reasonable cost of acceptance.Both Visa and MasterCard have said they cannot enforce these rules, and they and others have argued that the system needs the involvement of a regulator to monitor surcharging and enforce the scheme rules.Speaking at yesterday's RFi Savings and Deposits conference, RBA head of payments Tony Richards said it was too early to judge the effectiveness of the measures it introduced last year.Richards said: "We have not seen the full effect of the implementation. What the evidence shows is that a small number of payments are surcharged."I am not going to defend the surcharging practices of all merchants. The Payments System Board will keep looking at this"What we need to ensure is that the surcharge is transparent and that there is a non-surchargeable means of payment at all times."