Our card fee explained

Regulations prohibit merchants from charging fees for retail purchases, this was introduced to protect consumers from inflated charges on non-commercial purchases. For commercial purchases made using corporate/business cards, surcharges are capped at the cost to the merchant for processing the payment - this usually falls somewhere between 1.5 and 4%. We assume all wholesale customers purchasing through their trade accounts are doing so using corporate/business cards, therefore we add a standard 1.5% to all card payments on these accounts so that we can fairly recoup some of this additional cost. Unlike retail sales, wholesale margins do not allow for such an extra cost if we have to bear it ourselves.

Please see section 6.2 in Guidance on the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 (updated June 2018) below:

^{6.2 Where regulation 4 and/or regulation 6A(2) applies (and provided that regulation 6A(1) does not apply), surcharges are permitted, but must not exceed the costs incurred by the merchant / trader in processing the relevant means of payment. Where none of these regulations (6A(1), 6A(2) or 4) apply there is no limit on the level at which a surcharge can be set, subject to the consumer rights referred to in the “Other consumer legislation” section below.}

Going forward, if you choose to make payments with a personal card to which the 1.5% fee cannot be charged, we would need to process and invoice your order as a retail purchase without the trade discount. The alternative would have to be a blanket increase in prices for all customers, but in fact most trade payments are made using either a bank transfer or a company card so that would not be a fair distribution of the additional cost.

To help avoid the card transaction fee for our trade customers, we have introduced a new, easy and secure payment facility - instant bank transfer - this payment facility will provide you with a link to your bank with the payment details pre-filled to help speed things up. We are not applying a fee for this service to provide an alternative to card payments. Your account handler or one of the accounts team will be able to explain more if you have any questions on this service.