October 18, 2011
SEOUL (AFP) - Tens of thousands of South Korean restaurant owners closed for lunch on Tuesday in protest at having to pay credit card companies high commission fees.
Police said that around 50,000 small restaurants in Seoul and nearby areas observed the boycott, out of a total of 170,000 in and around the capital.
Approximately 25,000 restaurateurs staged a rally in a southern Seoul stadium, witnesses estimated.
"We want an immediate lowering of high credit card commission fees, which are killing small merchants," read one placard.
The rally was organised by the Korea Restaurant Association, which has 460,000 members with total annual sales estimated at 70 trillion won ($61 billion).
The association denounced card firms for collecting high commissions of 2.7 percent from them, while petrol stations, department stores and golf course operators pay just 1.5 percent.
It called for fees for restaurants to also be cut to 1.5 percent.
Card firms offered Monday to slash the fees by an average of 0.2 percent for small merchants, but the association rejected it as insufficient.
The association is also urging the government to ease tight restrictions on hiring foreign workers and opposes proposed legislation allowing retailers to refuse customers who want to use credit cards for small transactions.
Currently retailers who refuse to accept credit cards can be jailed or fined.
The Financial Services Commission plans to set the lower limit on card payments at 10,000 won, saying this would ease the financial burden on small merchants.
But retailers say it will only deter customers in a country with one of the world's highest rates of credit card usage -- where shoppers use plastic even to buy a take-away cup of coffee.
