By Guardian Reporter , The Guardian
CUSTOMERS in banks and financial institutions are being relieved from exorbitant tariffs for interbank transfers through retail platforms and channels, with new indicative charges issued by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT).
Dr Sauda Msemo, the deputy governor for financial stability and deepening, issued indicative charges in the circular referenced as LB.178/179/01/69 dated April 22, 2024 and came into effect on May 1.
Posted on the BoT website on Friday, it was issued pursuant to Section 56 (3) of the National Payment Systems Act 2015, addressing all banks and financial institutions, the BoT official stated in the circular.
The move follows complaints of high charges being imposed on customers for transferring funds from one bank to another through retail platforms and channels, it said.
This tended to increase the burden on consumers of these services, the circular noted, highlighting that fees and commissions are major sources of non-funded incomes among commercial banks and other financial institutions.
He said that BoT has set limits to charges for interbank transfer through retail platforms for specified transfer amounts, with zero charges to the end user or recipient for incoming transfer.
For outgoing transfer, customers are supposed to pay between 0/- and 500/- for transfer volumes between 1/- and 50,000/-, 0/- with 1,500/- charges applying for transfers of values between 500,000/- and 5m/-, the circular specified, indicating 0/- to 2,000/- charges for transferring values set at 5m/- to 20m/-.
Banks and financial institutions need to comply with the indicative charges for interbank electronic fund transfer (ETF) and interbank instant transfers through retail platforms and channels, the circular demanded.
Back in November, BoT issued a circular to Tanzania Interbank Settlement System (TISS) participants on revised fees and charges, involving consultation with stakeholders.
It was part of the initiatives aimed at reducing costs of effecting electronic payments, promoting digital payments adoption and reducing direct cash settlements.
The schedule for new TISS fees and charges came into effect from January 1, where TISS participants’ customer transactions processing charges were set at 0/- to 2,000/- for payments with a value from 1/- to 10m/-, charging 0/- to 5,000/- for payments with a value above 10m/- and more than 50m/- and 0/- to 10,000/- for payments valued at more than 50m/-.
The East Africa Payments System (EAPS) alternatively provides for customer transaction processing charges are 0/- to 10,000/- regardless of the value of the transaction and zero charge to the end user for incoming payments.
BoT set out interbank transfer penalties of 200,000/- each non-delivery versus payment cancellation, rejected settlement on real time and rejected queued transactions at the final cut-off time due to insufficient funds.
Payments batch rejection penalty fees for interbank payments system participants with insufficient funds was set at 1m/-, while penalty for auto-conversion of intraday loan facility (ILF) to Lombard was set at 5m/-.
Failure to credit the beneficiary account within two hours of credit being paid into a bank or financial institution for onward transfer is subjected to 1m/- penalty, with failure to effect TISS participant’s payment within the stipulated time is also subjected to 1m/- penalty.
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