Optimism that in April there will be moves to reduce for traders after their compulsory use , make the parties involved in the configuration of supplies. The consultations of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance with Visa and Mastercard schemes, Euronet, Global Payments, Nexi, Wordline and Viva Wallet are proceeding with good will to address the charges incurred by using POS payments in micro transactions. Such transactions are discussed to define transactions worth up to EUR 10. However, it is not simple to introduce a horizontal reduction in charges for transactions up to this level, as the representatives of specialized companies in the field of payments point out in the Ministry of Finance could well distort the functioning of the market from the ‘broken’ larger transactions to less than EUR 10 in order to circumvent the charges. In addition, payment companies point out to the Ministry that not all small transactions are the same. As an example, they mention the payment for a car transit from the Attic Road that costs 2.80 euros. Based on the small amount of the transaction the payment of which is received by card, Attica Street could also request a reduction in charges, even if it is not a small business. At the same time stands that are a classic example of small businesses cannot be treated all the same, since, for example, the Constitution stand does not make the same turnovers as the booth that is at a less busy point. In addition, microcard transactions themselves vary depending on the product, the tax burden on them and the profit margin left to the trader. The payment companies, as part of the dialogue with the Ministry of Finance, have cited Italy’s example of how it handled the obligation of POS by traders. Italy subsidized small businesses with a turnover of up to 400,000 euros, for 30% of the supplies they pay through cards. It is noted that the final charges in the use of POS are formed by three sides: the supplies of Visa – Mastercard schemes that move from 0.20% to 3.5% depending on the service, bank supplies (issuers of payment cards) that reach up to 0.20% and the commissions of acquirers that move to 0.10% – 0.20%. Since the card sector in Greece was up to a previous part of the banking activity, charges on card/POS have been set at levels that are among the lowest in Europe, because the banks provided the service in combination with other products, offering more attractive costs to the customer.
POS: Optimism for debt reduction agreement in April
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