On January 7, a post appeared on Facebook that reads: “Because we should pay everywhere with tickets instead of cards.” The author goes on to an explanation where he guarantees that if a person goes to a restaurant and has to pay a bill of 50 euros, “the seller will be charged a commission of 3%, that is, 1.50 euros for each operation.” . However, it is a misleading publication.

A misleading post claims that the fees charged to merchants are always 3%.

The publication presents a confusing text, which makes it difficult, from the outset, an immediate understanding of what it intends to expose. It is also true that the author does not share any credible source, no news, no banking institution, not even a merchant serving as a source for the publication.

But let’s take it point by point. The rate mentioned by the author exists in fact and was explained to the Observer by the Bank of Portugal. “This is called the merchant service fee and is a commission paid by each merchant to the acquiring payment service provider for the acquisition of card transactions, under a contract that binds the acquirer to the beneficiary to accept and process transactions with card. -payments based on payments”, says that institution.

But contrary to what the post suggests, there is no legal or regulated limit to the value of these fees. Therefore, different amounts can be charged “depending on the payment system based on the card actually used in the payment.” We are talking about Visa, Mastercad or Multibanco cards. You can also pay fees for other amounts depending on the type of payment: online, no contact or physical automatic payment terminal. That is, the merchant can pay different fees and they can also be negotiated “between merchants and acquirers”.

Much of this information can be easily consulted using the pages of the Bank’s Customer Portal, for example. On that same page, you can also find the Commission Comparator, a tool “that allows you to compare the commissions related to the services associated with payment accounts.”

Conclution

It is not true that the commission charged to merchants for each transaction is always 3% in Portugal. These fees, known as the commercial service fee, according to the Bank of Portugal, can vary and these values ​​are public and freely consultable.

Thus, according to the Observer classification system, this content is:

DECEIVER

In Facebook’s rating system, this content is:

PARTLY FALSE: Content claims are a mix of accurate and inaccurate facts, or the main claim is misleading or incomplete.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook.