Merchant fees for card transactions cut

POS transaction service providers are being forced to cut their fees in an attempt to prevent a legislative intervention from the government.

This was started by NBG Pay, which enables small companies to accept payments via POS for transactions up to 10 euros with a low fee of 0.5%. The 0.5% commission incorporates all the charges incurred for using the card at the POS - i.e. the card issuing bank charge, the payment scheme charge (Visa or MasterCard) and the NBG Pay charge, which is the terminal administrator.

The issue was discussed at a wide-ranging meeting held on Friday by Minister of National Economy and Finance Kostis Hatzidakis with the participation of representatives of banks and companies accepting card transactions, during which the minister raised the issue of reducing commissions for small transactions, leaving it open to legislative intervention if the...