Speaking at the Mediafax Talks about Competition conference, Chiritoiu said he is hoping the enforcement norms will also be approved in upcoming months, once the law has been published in the Official Journal.
The bill caused a stir among card processors. Representatives of the two large profile companies, MasterCard and Visa, warned against the negative impact of lowering interchange fees.
Visa representatives said last year that Romanian authorities should consider all consequences of a “drastic and sudden” cut in interchange fees for card payments to avoid a negative impact on investments in payment technologies and the use of cards. They also said that interchange fees play an essential role in balancing the payment system for all parties involved, from cardholders and retailers to issuer and acquiring banks, as well as in boosting the card penetration rate.
MasterCard representatives, in turn, said the cut in interbank fees for card transactions might trigger higher costs for card users and lower investments in the development of payment infrastructure.
Early March 2015, the European Parliament adopted a regulation capping interchange fees for payments using consumer debit and credit cards and improving competition for all card payments. When implemented, the rules are estimated to lead to a reduction of about EUR6 billion annually in hidden fees for consumer cards. As a general rule, the regulation will cap interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards.
In Romania, the bill also stipulates capping daily cash payments made by companies to or from individuals, to RON5,000/person and RON10,000/person, respectively.