New regulation on Multilateral Interchange Fees

On 8 June 2018, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on Multilateral Interchange Fees and Special Operating Rules for Card-Based Payment Transactions (the “Law”), which was published in the Official Gazette No. 44/2018 dated 8 June 2018, effective on 16 June 2018, which shall begin to apply on 17 December 2018, with the exception of Article 9, which relates to the obligation of banks to issue a domestic card with a account to the client, which is applicable from 17 August 2018.The goals of adopting this law are as follows:

• Arranging the market of payment cards;
• Reducing the costs of traders and costumers;
• Acceleration of payments through debit or credit cards and
• Developing and increasing the efficiency of non-cash payments in the country

In accordance with the Law, multilateral interchange fees cannot exceed 0.2% of the value of the completed transaction with debit card and 0.3% of the value of the completed transaction with credit card.

Also, it is prescribed the obligation of the payment service providers to deliver data to the National Bank of Serbia (the “NBS”) in order to monitor the application of multilateral interchange fees restrictions. On 14 September 2018, the NBS adopted the Decision on the content, deadlines and method of submission of data on multilateral interchange fees, which specifies the procedure and deadlines in which payment service providers are obliged to provide data on multilateral interchange fees.