New Zealand caps Visa and Mastercard commercial credit card interchange from 22 April 2027

New Zealand's Commerce Commission published its final decision on 22 October 2026 to regulate the interchange fees that issuing banks earn on Visa and Mastercard commercial credit cards. Until now these business and corporate cards sat outside the caps that already apply to consumer cards, and retailers have long argued that they carry a disproportionate share of card costs. From 22 April 2027, interchange on domestic commercial credit cards will be capped at 0.70% for in-person payments and 1.10% for online payments. Foreign-issued commercial credit cards get the same 0.70% in-person cap and a 1.50% cap online. For domestic cards there is also a temporary limit until 21 April 2029: the fee will be the lower of the new cap or the per-transaction rate that applied on 1 December 2025, so rates that are already below the cap cannot rise. The Commission estimates the change will cut interchange by about $50 million a year and merchant service fees by around $40 million a year. The schemes are expected to confirm the new rates and qualifying criteria with acquirers within two months of the decision. The regulator did not impose a binding pass-through rule, but said it will monitor merchant service fees and carry out targeted reviews to check that savings reach businesses. For online merchants this matters because commercial cards are common in business-to-business sales, travel and subscriptions, and card-not-present rates have been the highest. The real saving will depend on how acquirers reprice blended and interchange-plus plans once the caps start.