MB Way charges of 80 cents or €1 could soon be on the horizon
The Bank of Portugal is looking into the possibility of charges levied on MB Way transfers and their respective impacts on consumers.
It comes after the consumer watchdog Deco warned of the risk of increasing costs for the service.
Banco de Portugal (BoP) is “monitoring” the matter of charging commissions for using MB Way and “evaluating the respective impacts”, after Deco warned of the risk of increased costs associated with this service.
At issue were recent reports that SIBs – the manager of the Multibanco network and the MB Way service – intends to allow the latter to be associated with payment accounts, in addition to the solution that already exists to associate the service with payment cards, which led to Deco — the Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection, to warn of the risk of an increase in commissions for this new regime of transfers between accounts.
According to the news agency Lusa, the BoP is “following the situation and evaluating the respective impacts.”
On Thursday, also in response to Lusa, the Ministry of Economy also said it was “carefully” following the issue to “ensure the protection of consumer interests”, admitting to making adjustments to the legislation in force.
On Wednesday, Deco expressed “concern” about the “risk of increased commissions” to the MB Way service following the new regime of transfers between payment accounts and announced that it had sent a letter to the Ministries of Economy and Finances “requesting an urgent evaluation and intervention to adapt the legislation and maintain proportional charges on MB Way transfers”.
Associating MB Way with accounts (rather than bank cards) will mean that transfers between users will be considered immediate transfers ”, so “may be subject to the price list applicable on such transfers and not subject to the limits applicable to transfers between cards, as is currently the case, and in case of exceeding free transactions, 0.2% in the case of debit card and 0.3% in the case of credit card ”, the association explained in a statement.
If this should become the amount charged for MB Way transfers on an inter-account basis, Deco points out that it will result in “a brutal increase in charges on the current average value of MB Way transfers of approximately €40, going from close to 10 cents now to 80 cents or even above one euro”.
