A new card payment surcharge standard will take effect for large businesses on Thursday, limiting surcharges to recovering the cost of acceptance.All other business will have to comply with the new standard on September 1 next year.The cost of acceptance has been defined more narrowly than in previous versions of the standard. In most cases the permissible surcharge level will be the amount the merchant has been charged by its acquiring bank for processing the payment.The Reserve Bank has defined the average cost of acceptance in percentage terms so that merchants will not be able to charge high fixed-amount surcharges on low value transactions.The RBA has banned fixed-amount surcharges and blended surcharges.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which will police the standard, has issued a guide for merchants, indicating that merchant costs involved in accepting debit card payments are around 0.5 per cent of the transaction value and for credit card payments are around one per cent to 1.5 per cent.The ACCC said that if a business includes a service fee or handling fee in its pricing, the surcharge ban will apply if those fees are payable on some payment methods and not others."A business is not able to by-pass the new ban by introducing what is in effect a payment surcharge but call it something else," the ACCC said.The surcharge standard is unlikely to apply to fees that are payable regardless of the payment method. However, such fees need to be included in the advertised total price, so the consumer is aware of the full cost before they make their purchase. From June next year acquiring banks and payment facilitators will be required to give merchants regular statements that set out the cost of acceptance for each card scheme.Payment instruments that are not covered by the surcharge standard include Bpay, PayPal, Diners Club and American Express cards issued directly be Amex. Nor does the standard apply to taxi payments.Treasurer Scott Morrison said in a statement that the new surcharge rules would mean that consumers would be charged less for purchasing a range of goods and services, including air fares and footy tickets, on their credit and debit cards.