2011-12-09
The Bank of Lithuania: transparency of the payment services market encourages the reduction of charges
When the Bank of Lithuania started to announce charges of the most frequent payment services, already four enterprises providing such payment services reduced charges to customers.
“The fact that charges of services are reduced shows that the Bank of Lithuania decision to establish possibilities for consumers of comparing all charges of credit and payment institutions justifies itself. We hope that these are the first signs confirming our opinion that the room for the reduction of charges does exist. Therefore, we shall do our best to further increase as much as possible the competition among enterprises providing payment services”, said Vaidievutis Geralavičius, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania.
In only this week two banks announced about charges being reduced.
The Danske Bank A/S Lithuania Branch reduced payments for utilities by more than a half to LTL 0.8 (earlier this branch charged for this service when settled in cash LTL 2 and when transferring funds from the account – LTL 1). After a public Bank of Lithuania stimulation of commercial banks to pay attention to socially sensitive charges, this year Danske Bank A/S Lithuania Branch has reduced charges for utilities for the second time already.
This year a second charges reduction step has also been made by Šiaulių bankas. This week Šiaulių bankas has announced a more than three times (to LTL 0,7 against the former LTL 2.5 charge) reduction of the payment order charge for utilities when settled in cash in the bank branch. In addition to this, Šiaulių bankas informed that it would not apply a charge for crediting of funds into the customer’s account and for internal transfers in the same bank. Six months ago the bank repealed a charge for utilities when paid by Internet.
AB Lietuvos paštas was among the first enterprises – already after several days when the Bank of Lithuania started to post charges on the Bank of Lithuania website – that reduced prices of their services. The price for the payment of services, when paid in cash and by a debit card is reduced almost by a half – from LTL 1.3 to LTL 0.79.
The price for services was also cut by the credit union “Kelmės taupa”. Now customers of this credit institution pay for services when settled in cash LTL 0.5 (earlier they were charged LTL 0.8 ).
In order to form better conditions for the population in getting more information on standard charges on payment services applicable by domestic banks, credit unions and payment institutions to natural entities, the Bank of Lithuania posts them on its website at www.lb.lt/ikainiai from 14 October 2011.