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Draft (Hebrew)

 

The Banking Supervision Department at the Bank of Israel has announced its intention to amend the Fees Rules (Customer Service)(Fees), 5768–2008 (hereinafter “the Rules”) and to set out a uniform fee schedule for small businesses receiving settlement services from the credit card companies for credit card transactions, and to also amend the Rules regarding the fees collected from card holders.
 
In accordance with the draft that has been published, the number of fees collected from businesses will be reduce by setting a uniform fee schedule for frequent services to businesses that receive settlement services for credit card transactions from the credit card companies, similar to the situation in other parts of the banking services fee schedule.  The significance of setting a reduced fee schedule is that the credit card companies will now be able to collect only the fees set out in the schedule.
 
The objective of the proposed amendment is to create uniformity in the fee schedules of the companies, to increase the simplicity, transparency and competitiveness for businesses and credit card holders, and to remove impediments to movement.  As part of this measure, the companies will be required to publish a uniform fee schedule for businesses, which will make it significantly easier for them to compare.
 
For instance, in the area of settlement, fees for a business to register and join, manage an account, and change a bank account to credit are being cancelled.  In the area of fees to credit card holders, the fee for delayed payment (which was collected for each transaction in payments) is being cancelled, and the rules for collecting conversion fees for foreign currency transactions or withdrawals are being simplified so that one fee will be collected which will be calculated based on the representative exchange rate.
 
Supervisor of Banks David Zaken notes that, “These measures are further to the recommendations of the Team to Assess Increasing Competitiveness in the Banking System, the aim of which is to improve the ability of customers—both small businesses and private customers—to compare, to increase price transparency, to remove impediments to movement, and at the end of the day, to encourage competition in the credit cards field.”