Central Bank of Iran has obliged the banks to pay POS terminals’ transaction fees, scrapping an earlier proposal to charge businesses and terminal owners for POS transactions, CBI’s website reported on Tuesday.
The plan which took effect on Tuesday imposes commission fees up to 2,500 rials on the bank receiving the money which is transacted. Earlier, the fee was paid by the bank that had issued the debit card.
Collected revenues from the fees will be allocated to Payment Service Provider (PSP) -- companies that offer services for accepting e-payments -- to support their infrastructure development.
CBI data shows that more than 5.6 billion transactions were recorded during the first seven months ending October 22 with POS terminals accounting for 97% of the total.
Elaborating on the plan, Naser Hakimi, the CBI deputy for information technology, said imposing the fees on transactions is inevitable.
There are 4.37 million active POS terminals in the country and about 8.8 trillion rials ($295 million) is required annually to support the e-payment sector, according to CBI officials.
“E-payment sector currently has between 45,000 to 50,000 employees who are directly and indirectly working to improve the systems,” Mehr News Agency quoted CBI officials as saying.
The Central Bank of Iran had first proposed 1,000-1,200 rial fees on POS terminal owners which led to disputes among businesses and cardholders, temporality discouraging them from using the system.
The POS terminals are said to be a popular method of payment with online transactions coming in second.
