Retailers demand lower card payment fees
17.05.2012, 09:38Rapid increase in the number of card payments has made several retailers demand that banks reduce card payment fees that they charge from retailers, writes Äripäev.
So far banks have been reluctant to comply with the demand and say that they have already lowered them.
According to bank representatives, the card payment fees have been cut more than 30 percent in the last five or six years.
However, Estonia’s largest fue retailer Statoil argues that its card-related costs have increased 20 percent in the last three years.
“Service fee percentage has fallen, but, because there have been more card payments and the price of fuel has gone up which is related to the fee, our costs have also gone up,” explains Paavo Siimann, finance director of Statoil Fuel & Retail Eesti AS.
Statoil has already proposed that the card payment centre that manages the system and belongs to Estonia’s largest banks changes the system so that the fee is no longer related to the amount purchased.
“An alternative would be to establish a limit for the card payment fee,” saids Siimann.
Banks have so far said that the current fee percentage system complies best with the banks’ service structure and say that they are negotiating individual fee percentages with retailers that have high card payment volumes.
The number of card payments has gone up by a third in the last two years to 18.6 million transactions worth 319 million euros.