Industry · Payment Processing
RHB Bank told its merchants on 3 October 2026 that from 26 October its DuitNow QR rate will be 0.35% on payments made from a bank account or e-wallet, and 0.60% on those paid with a credit card. The notice covers its card terminals, its Sound Box devices and its printed QR stands, and it mentions no exemption for small businesses. CIMB has gone the other way, extending its 0% rate on static DuitNow QR "until further notice". Whether a QR payment at your counter is free now depends on which bank you use.
This guide sets out what a Malaysian business pays to accept cards, FPX online banking, DuitNow QR and e-wallets, from the price lists of the providers that publish one, as read on 13 October 2026. It also covers what Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) caps and what it does not, whether you can add a surcharge, and whether service tax applies to the fees. Amounts are in ringgit.
BNM's Payment Cards Framework, in force since 1 January 2023, sets ceilings on interchange, the fee the card issuer takes from each payment. On a debit card from a domestic network such as MyDebit, interchange is capped at 0.10% of the sale or RM0.37 plus 0.001%, whichever is lower. On a Malaysian-issued Visa or Mastercard debit card it is 0.27% or RM0.63 plus 0.001%, whichever is lower. On a credit card it is 0.60%. Higher interchange figures that still circulate online come from the 2014 framework the current one replaced.
What the framework does not cap is the merchant discount rate (MDR), the all-in percentage your acquirer or gateway charges you. That is set commercially, which is why a card payment that carries at most 0.60% in interchange costs a small online business between 1.5% and 4% of a RM100 sale, as the next section shows. The framework instead requires acquirers to charge a separate MDR for domestic debit, international debit, prepaid and credit cards, and to show both interchange and MDR on a monthly statement. Ask your acquirer for that breakdown.
Two other rules in the framework are worth knowing. An acquirer must make sure its merchants accept debit cards at minimum, but cannot force them to accept credit cards on the same network, so a business squeezed by credit card fees can take debit only. And on a debit card carrying two networks, the merchant may choose which one the payment is routed through.
One change took effect this year. From 1 July 2026, BNM lets card networks add 0.10% to the interchange on debit card payments made through mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay. Acquirers may pass that through, but only on those payments; BNM's letter says it must not raise the MDR on any other card transaction. BNM also said it would begin a broader review of the interchange ceilings in the first half of 2026. We found no published outcome as of mid-October.
Online, these are the standard published rates for a Malaysian-registered business as of 13 October 2026. None charges a subscription on its basic plan, though since 1 October Xendit bills a US$50 monthly minimum to accounts whose fees come to less than that.
Several gateways, including 2C2P, publish no Malaysian rates and quote on request. Shopify Payments and Square do not operate in Malaysia, and SumUp has no Malaysian site, so a Shopify store pays its gateway's rate. Billplz adds 0.3% on Shopify orders, and Xendit will add a 0.5% Shopify partner fee from 1 December 2026.
Paid online by a Malaysian card, a RM100 sale costs RM1.50 at Billplz on the Standard plan and RM1.80 on Basic, RM2.20 at HitPay, RM2.40 at Airwallex and at Curlec on Basic, RM2.80 to RM2.90 at Xendit and RM4.00 at Stripe, before any tax. Paid through PayPal, it costs RM5.90.
FPX is where the pricing models split. Billplz and Xendit charge a flat fee, so a RM1,000 FPX payment costs RM1.25 at Billplz Basic and RM2.10 at Xendit, the same as a RM100 one. HitPay and Curlec charge a percentage, so the same RM1,000 costs RM18.40 at HitPay and RM15 at Curlec. A business with large orders, such as a furniture shop, a tuition centre collecting term fees or a B2B supplier, saves most by choosing a flat FPX fee. A business selling RM15 items is better off with a percentage, because Billplz's RM1.25 is more than 8% of the sale.
DuitNow QR is the national QR standard run by PayNet, the interbank network. PayNet publishes no merchant price for it; each bank or e-wallet acting as acquirer sets its own. When the temporary fee waiver introduced in 2019 ended on 1 October 2023, BNM said banks and providers managing 75% of DuitNow QR merchants would keep waiving the fee for micro and small businesses, and that PayNet would help cover the cost for acquirers that did. BNM's release did not define micro and small or name the banks, and it set no end date.
Three years on, the bank you use decides the price. CIMB charges 0% on static DuitNow QR until further notice and has promised 21 days' notice of any change. RHB's 0.35% and 0.60% start on 26 October. Touch 'n Go charges 0.5% on payments made with its e-wallet to its own static QR code (not DuitNow), but only for businesses with five or more outlets or a cashless payment terminal; donations to charities and places of worship are exempt. Gateways charge for DuitNow like any other method: HitPay charges 1.2% online or at its terminals, and Billplz 1.5% at its wallet rate.
BNM is also ending the separate QR codes that banks and e-wallets run alongside DuitNow. Under a policy document issued on 30 June 2026, banks, and e-wallets that take part in the shared payment network, may not sign new merchants to their own QR schemes and must phase existing ones out by 30 June 2028. An acquirer that belongs to more than one QR network must also let merchants choose which one a payment is routed through. If you display a bank's own QR code at the counter, expect to be moved to an interoperable code such as DuitNow QR.
Generally not. In 2018 BNM said its earlier card framework barred retailers from surcharging debit card payments, and that Visa and Mastercard rules carried a similar prohibition for credit cards. Since 2023 the Payment Cards Framework has left surcharging to the card networks' own rules, which they must publish, under BNM's monitoring. Where a network or acquirer grants a merchant an exemption, the merchant must show the surcharge at the point of sale.
QR payments carry their own risk. In June 2024 Bernama reported the domestic trade minister saying an extra charge on QR payments is not allowed and will be acted on under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011, and that officers in Melaka had issued a RM200 compound to a food stall for adding 1% to each QR payment. Touch 'n Go's merchant agreement separately forbids adding a surcharge, processing fee or mark-up for customers paying with its e-wallet. Discounts are a different matter. The card framework bars networks and acquirers from stopping a merchant offering a discount to steer customers to a particular card or network, and treats that as distinct from a surcharge. A discount for paying by QR follows the same logic, although the framework itself speaks only of cards.
Service tax was extended to fee-based financial services in 2025, and customs lists merchant acquiring among them. But the Royal Malaysian Customs Department's guide on financial services, as at 24 October 2025, treats the MDR, the gateway fee and interchange on an online card payment as excluded basic banking services, because they relate to payments connected to current and savings accounts. CIMB's July 2026 FAQ says the same of MDR. Stripe has charged no service tax on processing fees in Malaysia since 2022, though it does on add-ons such as Radar.
Not every provider reads it that way. Billplz says it adds 8% SST to its plan and transaction fees, and Airwallex and Xendit quote fees exclusive of SST where it applies. The customs exclusion is worded around bank accounts and does not separately address payments funded by a credit card. If tax matters to your margins, ask your provider whether it charges SST on transaction fees, and on what basis.
HitPay charges the same 1.2% + RM1 for a Malaysian card in person as online. Its Tap to Pay on iPhone has no setup or monthly fee and needs an iPhone XS or later on iOS 18, and its BBPOS WisePad 3 reader costs RM310. Stripe Terminal is available in Malaysia at 2.8% + RM0.50 per domestic card payment, plus RM0.45 per authorisation for Tap to Pay, with readers from RM279 to RM1,299 and an optional RM40 monthly data plan. For more on phone-based card acceptance, see our guide to Tap to Pay fees. Banks supply terminals and QR sound boxes too, but RHB, CIMB and Public Bank publish no card MDR; ask for a quote.
Instalment plans such as Atome and Grab's PayLater are among the most expensive methods on Malaysian price lists. Atome costs 6% at Billplz and on Curlec's Basic plan, and 5.5% + RM1 at HitPay. Grab's PayLater is 6.5% online at HitPay, and at Xendit 6% for its pay-later option or 8% for four-month instalments, before Xendit's RM0.90. Malaysia's Consumer Credit Act 2025 came into force on 1 March 2026 and requires BNPL providers to be licensed by the new Consumer Credit Commission, with licensing taking effect on 1 June 2026 and a six-month transition. It regulates the lender's dealings with your customer, not what the provider charges you. Our guide to BNPL merchant fees sets out how those fees compare elsewhere.
For the same picture in neighbouring markets, see our guides to Indonesia's QRIS fees and payment fees in the Philippines.
