I have three businesses which process credit card payments - a newsagency, software company and online ink and toner sales business. Our eftpos merchant fees were .79, 1.15 and 1.45 respectively. The online ink and toner business is 100% eftpos transactions yet it has the worst fees.

An email to the bank last week resulted in a 20% reduction in fees for the ink and toner business. While not ideal it is a start. The bank says online transactions are riskier. I pointed them to our perfect record over two years. They said we may be good but the industry is not. So, the bank makes us pay for others - not fair in my view.

We’re going to talk with other banks and see if we can do better. We’re on a mission with bank fees having cut our mobile and fixed line phone bill by more than 60% in the last year, we know what can be achieved with some of these fixed business overheads.