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09/01/2024

The Law on Interchange Fees and Separate Business Rules Concerning Payment Cards, which will be applicable from today - 9 January, fully regulates the payment card market by establishing equal rights, obligations and opportunities for all participants while interbank fee amount limiting will contribute to the reduced costs for payment transactions based on payment cards.

The new legislation treats the issue of the currently different interbank fees for payment cards and limits the interbank fees. Instead of the current 0.3% to 2.30% for card payments, banks will be forbidden to charge merchants an interbank fee higher than 0.2% of the debit card payment value and respectively 0.3% for credit card payments. This restriction is expected to bring lower merchant fees, which will indirectly create the preconditions for lower prices of goods and services for consumers.

The new Law will also provide the comparability of fees that make up the merchant fee, greater transparency in the bank-merchant-consumer business relationship and better consumer information, with additional stimulation to use non-cash payments. It will positively affect merchants, especially small and medium-sized shops, who can negotiate reduced total merchant fees with their banks owing to greater transparency and lower interbank fees.

Along with the Law, the CBCG prepared the CBCG Guide for Merchants, explaining the advantages of the Law in more detail. It presented the Guide in cooperation with the Chamber of Economy of Montenegro and distributed materials to target groups using cashless payments in their business. The Guide explains the rights arising from the new Law in detail with the recommendations.

Moreover, to prepare for implementing the Law as effectively as possible, the CBCG intensively communicated with commercial banks in the previous period, pointing out changes in contractual obligations with merchants.

The Guide for Merchants with explanations and examples is available here.