Card payments, new rules on exchange fees - The client must be informed in advance about the exchange rate and cost of the transaction
The Bank of Albania is establishing clearer rules on how citizens are informed about foreign exchange costs during card payments or online transfers. The Supervisory Council approved amendments to the regulation on the comparability of payment account fees, imposing new obligations on banks and payment service providers.
The changes mainly affect card payments at ATMs and POS, but also credit transfers made online.
One of the innovations is that, when a currency exchange is applied during a card payment, the customer must receive clear information about the exchange rate used and its difference from the last exchange rate published by the Bank of Albania.
This difference will be expressed in percentage, through the so-called “mark-up”, and must be communicated to the client before completing the transaction.
The new rules aim to ensure that citizens are not only faced with a final amount on the screen, but are also able to understand how much the currency exchange is actually costing them.
This is especially important in cases where cards issued in another currency are used, for example in euros, while the payment or withdrawal is made in lek.
At the ATM or point of sale, the customer should also be informed about the amount that the beneficiary will receive and the amount that he will pay himself, according to the relevant currency. Before confirming the transaction, the possibility of choosing whether the exchange will be carried out by the ATM operator or by the customer's payment service provider should also be made clear.
The changes come at a time when card usage has expanded and foreign card transactions are common, especially in tourism-related sectors. For the user, the main issue remains how much money actually comes out of their account and how much it costs to exchange currency.
The regulation also imposes new requirements for online credit transfers.
When a transfer involves currency exchange, the bank or payment service provider must show the customer, before giving confirmation, the exchange fee, the total amount that will be debited from the account and the amount that will reach the beneficiary.
So, the goal is for the cost of a payment or transfer not to be revealed only after the transaction has been completed, but to be visible to the customer from the moment he decides whether to proceed or not.
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