The Bank of Israel is cutting bank and credit card fees. A general revision of the banking rules taking effect today will reduce the number of fees. In addition, the revision set a uniform fee rate for the operating services provided by the credit card companies in clearing debit card transactions.
Starting today, a bank cannot charge a transaction fee for immediate debiting through a debit card on the direct channel. Among other things, the purpose of the revision is to increase the use of this means of payment as a substitute for cash.
Banks can now charge a fee for producing confirmation of ownership of a bank account starting only with the second such confirmation in a year.
A more important fee eliminated is the charge for transferring funds in real time through the Zahav system (real time crediting and transfers) up to NIS 1 million. Starting today, charges will be restricted to the services price of a single transaction by the clerk. The average fee for this service, which was NIS 39 before the revision, will now be NIS 6.
In addition, the management fee for housing loans, which was controlled and set at NIS 2 per month per loan (NIS 24 a year), collected with the monthly debiting for the housing loan, has now been eliminated in order to facilitate comparisons of the cost of housing loans. This revision will apply from today to all monthly payments for both new and old loans.
For credit cards, the fee for deferred payment on new debit card transactions in installments has been eliminated. The fee for deferred payment was NIS 0.50 a month, collected by the credit card company for every payment on transactions paid for by installments.
Supervisor of Banks David Zaken said, "The Bank of Israel Banking Supervision Department is continuing its policy of reducing, eliminating, and simplifying fees. Fees that constitute either a barrier to competition or market failure were eliminated in order to simplify the banking service products and increase transparency for the customer, especially households and small businesses, and his ability to compare."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 1, 2015
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