South Korea will apply preferential card fee rates from the 14th to about 3.094 million small and medium-sized credit card merchants with annual revenue of 3 billion won or less, covering 95.7% of all merchants. The measure also includes retroactive refunds for 159,000 businesses that newly registered between January 1 and June 30 and were initially charged standard rates before their revenue could be verified through National Tax Service data. Once confirmed as eligible, those merchants will receive the difference between the standard fee and the lower rate backdated to their opening date. The total refund is estimated at about 61.47 billion won, or roughly 387,000 won per merchant on average, with card companies set to deposit the money into settlement accounts by September 28. The policy also covers 1.999 million PG sub-merchants and 166,000 taxi operators, with retroactive refunds for 132,000 newly opened PG sub-merchants and 5,675 taxi operators from the first half, and is aimed at easing payment costs for small businesses while raising concerns about pressure on card issuers' profitability.