The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) has welcomed the decision by Visa to reduce its fees on business debit card transactions, which will be of benefit to both farmers and livestock marts.

ICOS has held extensive meetings with the Irish banks over the past year about the ‘‘prohibitive’’ charges for farmers using business debit cards to buy cattle at marts nationwide.

Previously, Visa business transactions in marts attracted a fee of 0.30% (negotiated as a group rate for the marts by ICOS). This is now being reduced to 0.20% until 1 September, after which the Visa debit card fee will be capped at €1 per transaction for secure payments (eg payment using chip and pin, online security verification or by phone using the three-digit security number, among other methods).

It will be capped at €2 per transaction for non-secure payments.

Big savings

For example, at a fee of 0.30%, a farmer buying €10,000 worth of stock would mean paying a transaction fee of €30, whereas this will now be capped at €1 for secure payments.

ICOS livestock and environmental executive Ray Doyle said that anything that can reduce costs for farmers is welcome.

“We’re very pleased with the proactive approach taken by Visa and the Irish banks where they listened to our concerns and have taken this into account in setting the new rates which will be of benefit to marts, farmers and all Visa business customers. Anything that can reduce costs for farmers is welcome at what is an overall difficult time for agriculture, in general.

“This will also help marts to reduce their volume cheque payments, which carry a business processing fee of €1.20 per cheque cashed running into costs of thousands of euro for marts nationwide,” he said.

Read more

Steady trade at Ennis mart as numbers reduce