Petrol pumps to continue to accept card payments till January 13

Petrol pumps have deferred their decision to not accept cards payments from Monday as banks have postponed their decision charging fuel retailers a transaction fee till January 13.

New Delhi: Petrol pumps have deferred their decision to not accept cards payments from Monday as banks have postponed their decision to charge fuel retailers a transaction fee till January 13.

The All India Petroleum Dealers Association (AIPDA) said that some of the banks like HDFC informed the association that they will be charging 1% on all credit card transactions and 0.25% to 1% on all debit card transactions from January 9.

Notably, banks so far, have not reversed the decision, but only deferred charging the fee known as the merchant discount rate, after the government's intervention on Sunday.

Though, customers paid a transaction fee along with a surcharge for buying fuel with debit or credit cards before the note ban, in order to promote cashless transactions, the RBI had exempted customers from paying these charges at petrol pumps, resulting in banks bearing the burden.

Now, the banks want to levy the charges again and pass on the burden to fuel retailers as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular on December 16, 2016, does not mention recovering these charges from customers.