New Zealand’s Commerce Commission on October 22 capped NZ commercial card interchange on Mastercard and Visa at 0.70% for domestic cards in store and 1.10% online, from April 22, 2027. Merchants pay about NZ$125 million a year in interchange on these cards, and the Commission expects the caps to cut that by NZ$50 million. American Express is not covered, so the cost of business card rewards moves onto issuers’ own fees, or onto Amex.
Commercial cards carried a fifth of NZ commercial card interchange
Commercial credit cards made up 8% of card transaction value between December 2024 and November 2025 and about 19% of interchange, the decision paper says. The weighted average domestic rate sits near 1.40%, more than double the rate on personal credit cards and almost double Australia’s level of about 0.8%. Foreign-issued commercial cards average about 2%.
The Commission warned in July 2025 that it would act if these fees did not fall, and it says it saw no meaningful reduction. Foreign-issued commercial cards get caps of 0.70% in store and 1.50% online, the same as foreign personal cards. For domestic cards it raised the June draft caps of 0.50% and 0.90% by 0.20 percentage points, citing Australia as the comparator and the needs of smaller issuers. A temporary mechanism also stops any domestic rate now below the cap from rising for two years, until April 21, 2029.
Merchant service fees should fall by about NZ$40 million a year, the Commission’s announcement says, against the NZ$50 million cut in interchange. It has not said where the other NZ$10 million goes, and it plans targeted reviews of pass-through. Retail NZ told RNZ that retailers “will feel let down” after the Commission had considered a cap as low as 0.5% in store.
Rewards move to the issuer’s fee
The Commission’s view is that rewards, loyalty points and expense tools on business cards “should not necessarily be fully paid for by interchange fees”. Merchants fund them through service fees and pass the cost on in prices or surcharges to every customer. In the Commission’s merchant survey, 71% saw no extra advantage in accepting a commercial card over a personal one.
A 0.70% cap roughly halves the current domestic average. Issuers can raise annual fees for business clients, trim rewards, or move clients to products the caps do not reach, and they already carry a heavy technology bill to run card programmes. Australia went through the same squeeze. The RBA kept its cap on domestic commercial cards at 0.8% in March, and GL Insight covered the surcharge ban that came with it. The US went the other way, and surcharging widened instead.
American Express is the leak
Amex sits outside the networks designated under the Retail Payment System Act. Submitters raised “the competitive implications of American Express remaining outside” the rules, and the one cross-submission warned of substitution to unregulated networks. The paper says Amex’s share of commercial card spend is growing but still small, and smaller than in Australia, where the RBA calls it the largest commercial card issuer.
Once Visa and Mastercard commercial cards earn 0.70%, an issuer or a corporate travel programme has a reason to favour a three-party card whose merchant fee is unregulated. The paper notes that Amex is accepted most among larger merchants and in travel-related industries, where merchants have the least ability to steer customers or to surcharge. Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young told RNZ that commercial cards already draw “the highest fees of any card accepted in store”, and that retailers cannot tell at the point of sale whether a card is personal, international or a work card. A shop that cannot see the card type cannot price it, so a shift toward Amex lands on merchants without any signal at the till.
The Commission says it will monitor volumes on “unregulated payment methods and networks, including American Express”, and that the results will decide whether it intervenes again. Its decision paper lists the treatment of Amex among issues for future work, alongside scheme fees and surcharging.
Bottom line
New Zealand has halved the average domestic commercial card rate on the two networks it regulates, and its next decision concerns the one it does not. More cards and networks coverage sits on the GL Insight hub.
Watch for:
- Visa and Mastercard confirming the new rates to acquirers by late December
- Amex’s share of commercial card spend in the Commission’s monitoring data
- Whether the Commission moves to designate American Express
