Credit card processing and merchant services in Kamloops, BC

Kamloops had 97,902 residents at the 2021 Census, up 8.4% from 2016, and ranked 12th in the province by population. Not every business there stays put. A food truck, a contractor or a mobile groomer can work in the city on Monday and in Merritt or Chase by Thursday, and the City's licensing allows for that.

Kamloops is one of the partner communities in an Inter-Community Business Licence (ICBL), along with Barriere, Chase, Clearwater, Lillooet, Logan Lake, Merritt and Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc. A mobile business that works in two or more of them may be eligible. The ICBL is a secondary licence: you need a primary business licence from one partner community first, and you apply for the ICBL through the community that issued it. The City also says mobile vendors, such as a food concession, must post their business licence where the public can see it.

Getting paid on the move is mostly a hardware decision. Tap to pay and mobile card readers work anywhere you have a data connection, and our terminals accept Interac, Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Small tickets bring up card fees. B.C. allows a surcharge on Visa and Mastercard credit cards within the 2.4% cap, but never on their debit or prepaid cards. Interac's rules say a merchant can't apply a surcharge to Interac Debit directly; only the acquirer can, and it's capped at $0.25. On a $14 lunch, a 2.4% credit surcharge comes to 34 cents, which hardly justifies a sign on the serving window. Interac puts the cost of a debit transaction at around 10 cents, so with small tickets, cheaper processing usually beats a surcharge.

Food trucks need their tax codes right too. B.C. exempts food for human consumption, prepared meals included, from PST, but soda carries 7% PST. We price on interchange-plus with no long-term contract. A free statement review shows what you pay now, and the British Columbia page lists every provincial rule.