Restaurant owner and chef Stephen Mercer, of Mercer's in Eltham, says tips are down since the new pin-only card system came in. Picture: Adam Elwood Source: News Limited

Six months after signatures for credit card payments stopped, restaurants are still finding customers feel awkward about punching in a tip at the eftpos machine while the waiter hovers.

Stephen Mercer, of the fine-dining restaurant Mercer’s in Eltham, said the PIN and payWave system had also made it awkward for staff.

“The first screen that comes up asks if you’d like to leave a tip, and a lot of people don’t read it well and they try to put their PIN number in there,” Mr Mercer said.

“And we have to say, ‘look, please feel free to use that if you like to but skip past it if you don’t, because a lot of people put their PIN number in there and leave a $5000 tip by mistake’. So that is awkward and tips have gone down a bit for our front-of-house staff because of that.”

Mr Mercer said there was no pressure to tip.

“We don’t expect it (tipping), our staff don’t rely on it, but it is a bonus if they get it. Some customers tip generously, but the majority don’t,” he said.

He said he could consider getting software that prints out an invoice for customers to write in a tip before the bill is processed.

“It’s weird because it’s reverting back to the old system, but I know some restaurants are doing it,” he said.

John Hart, CEO of the Restaurant & Catering Industry Association, said 85 per cent of transactions were on cards and many restaurants had seen a reduction in tips.

“We have ended up in a situation where the only ones actually collecting tips are those who have a manual process, where you write the tip amount on some sort of docket, and then they process that as the full transaction,” he said.

“I sense a great frustration among consumers about not being able to tip, if they’ve had good service and they want to recognise that service.”

Mr Hart said tipping was an important part of Australia’s labour market.

Eftpos CEO Mr Bruce Mansfield said anecdotally it did appear that the recent introduction of PIN for credit card payments, along with contactless payments, had impacted tipping.

Mr Mansfield said restaurant staff had to look for new ways to attract tips, including getting their customers comfortable with the tip options available on some new terminals.