Poland: limit on interchange fees for credit and debit cards

A maximum interchange fee of 0.5% is to be introduced on all Polish payment cards.

Polish Lower House of Parliament passed the amendment to the Act on Payment Services. The draft bill was read in the Upper House of Parliament on 19 September this year. The bill was adopted in an unchanged form. The act is to come into force on 1 January 2014, to be followed by a six-month adjustment period.

The change is being made following two years of public debate in Poland about the level of interchange fees charged by card issuers to settlement agents on all card transactions.

The legislation also imposes a maximum fee for new card issuers in the first three years of operation, and requires card issuers to publish details of how their fees are calculated.

Although the changes will only apply to domestic card payment transactions, the European Commission has already proposed an EU-wide limit on interchange fees of 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards, to come into force over the next two years (amending Directive 2007/64/EC).