CBA Sets Commission Caps on Cashless Payments for Specific Businesses

The Central Bank of Armenia has established maximum service commissions for card payments via POS terminals for certain entrepreneurs. These are the fees that businesses pay to banks when accepting card payments at their retail locations.

Why was this done?

Following the adoption of the Law "On Cashless Transactions," the volume of cashless payments in the country has grown. Generally, commissions have decreased over time; however, for small businesses with low turnover, they remained almost unchanged. Therefore, the Central Bank decided to intervene and set a commission ceiling to create more favorable conditions specifically for such entrepreneurs.

The following limits have been established for commissions on accepting cashless payments via physical POS terminals:

1. For Armenian Card (ArCa) cards:

1. The cards must be issued by Armenian banks.
2. The commission for each transaction is no more than 0.5% of the operation amount.

2. For cards of the two largest international payment systems:

1. The cards must be issued by banks operating in Armenia.
2. Operations are conducted via physical POS terminals.
3. The maximum commission is 0.9% of each transaction amount.

3. Special limits for businesses with low turnover: If the monthly turnover of operations via a POS terminal does not exceed 50,000 AMD:

1. In Yerevan – the aggregate amount of all commissions including fixed and periodic payments, is no more than 4,600 AMD.
2. In regional towns – no more than 3,000 AMD.
3. In rural areas – no more than 1,000 AMD.

These restrictions apply to the total size of all commissions, including both percentage-based and fixed payments.

What does this mean in practice?

1. Small businesses will be able to pay lower commissions for card acceptance.
2. Accepting cashless payments will become more cost-effective.
3. This move may accelerate the development of cashless settlements across the country.

Simply put, the state is attempting to make bank card acceptance more accessible for small shops and services.