Bengaluru: Hours after deciding to refuse card payments at fuel pumps from Monday to protest some banks levying the Merchant Discount Rate for purchases, dealers deferred their decision till January 13. They argued that the levy of 1 per cent and between 0.25 and 1 per cent on credit/debit card transactions was hitting their profits. “We have received an official communication from oil marketing companies that the transaction charges have been deferred till January 13. Hence, we have put off the stir,” said Ajay Bansal, president of the All India Petroleum Dealers Association.

Earlier report:

Mangaluru: Following the recent change in swiping policies by certain banks on petroleum outlets, the All India Petroleum Dealers Association (AIPDA) has decided to stop all debit and credit card transactions from midnight of January 8, 2017. As per the new policy, Petroleum dealers will be charged one percent on all credit card transactions and 0.25 to one percent on all debit card transactions.

After a two day state level meet of petroleum dealers at Moti Mahal Hotel, Ajay Bansal, the President of AIPDA told members of the media that they will stop accepting payments made through cards. “HDFC and Axis Bank had informed us about this new policy quoting a circular from the RBI. The circular does not have any reference to credit card charges or for not passing the same to the customers. We feel that HDFC Bank is using this as an excuse to improve their bottom line through transactions at fuel stations”, he mentioned. 

“Our margins are fixed on a per KL basis and do not have any scope to absorb these charges. We have specific mechanisms to compute the margin and these do not have any scope for credit card MDR (Merchant Discount Rates). This will lead to financial loses for the dealers”, he said while speaking about the profit margins of petroleum dealership business.

“To compound matters further, these credit card machine issuers are delaying settlements and not settling the entire dues as per our settlements. There are disputes about purchases being returned or not delivered. In a Retail Outlet there is no scope for returns or not being delivered a product once an individual has paid for the same. The reconciliation of swipes to amount being credit to our accounts is causing a lot of hardships and losses to a large percentage of the dealer community”, Bansal added.

In many petroleum outlets in Bengaluru and Mysuru, card transactions have been stopped, creating unexpected inconvenience to motorists.