Tausi Insider

Gordon Dean hands groceries to a customer (Will and his dog Sammi) in his store in Chesterville, Ont., on Nov. 10. Christinne Muschi/Tausi Insider At Gordon Dean’s small-town grocery stores in Ontario and Quebec, the rattle of coins in the checkout tills is a more infrequent sound than it used to be. The five stores in the Mike Dean Local Grocer chain are seeing customers pay with credit cards much more often. Before COVID-19, about 40 per cent of purchases were made in cash; these days, it’s closer to 18 per cent. And that has taken a bite out of the bottom line. “It’s chewed it up,” Mr. Dean said. “It basically increased our monthly processing-fee bill by 30 per cent.” Credit cards are the most common form of payment in Canada, and their use has skyrocketed during the pandemic. But how the credit-card system actually works is something most of us rarely think about – to the chagrin of some business owners, who subsidize the cost of that system. “Your travel points or your rebates –...