What fees do dealers have to pay in Moldova when you pay with credit card for purchases

More and more individuals in Moldova pay for purchases by using bank card instead of cash, whether it is made in the country or abroad. In general the price you pay using a credit card is similar to the price paid in cash. Although, the bank card us indirectly involve additional costs for dealers.
At the end of the third quarter of this year there were put into service about 1.25 million cards issued by banks in Moldova. Their number is in a permanent increase and during one year there was a 12.1% growth, according to BNM.
Number of cashless payments made in the country in the third quarter with cards issued in Moldova was 1.16 million in an aggregate value of 364.71 million lei. It is an increase of 43.4% and 41,7%, respectively.
Although, if you will not be withhold any commission for the purchase, and the price paid is the same whether you pay cash, the use of bank card indirectly leads to price increases.  Even if it don`t cost you anything to pay by card, it costs the dealer. And as a result, additional costs incurred by the entity are included in the products` prices.
For the convenience to pay without cash, the trader is charged by the bank that serves the terminal POS (Point of Sale) the trader. The fees charged by banks in Moldova vary by card and it is between 1.5% and 3.0% of the transaction amount. According to information available from commercial banks, the fees are different for the bank cards issued by local banks and for the bank cards of foreign banks.
Thus, the transaction card issued by a bank that serves the POS terminal will incur a lower fee between 1.5-2.0 depending on the bank, while payments taken with a card issued abroad will be charged at the between 2.5-3.0%. For cards issued by other local bank than serving POS terminal, the fee varies between 1.8-2.5%.
In addition to commissions to the amounts traded, banks can charge and unique fee for servicing the equipment. Fees may vary, depending on the type of connection to the network. If the connection is through fixed or Ethernet (local area network) there is a smaller fee – up to 150 lei, and if the connection is via GPRS (mobile phone), the fee is higher – up to 240 lei.
It is worth mentioning that the equipment, installation and training of bank staff is offered for free.
What you should know is that since 2012, it is mandatory and specified by legislation to own POS terminals for some traders. In this regard, the Law on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship provides that from 1 July 2012, traders (except savings and loan associations and microfinancing organizations) whose sales, volume of wholesale and / or retail and / or services exceeds 2 million lei during a calendar year are obligated to install POS terminals and provide the opportunity to pay through them in subdivisions where the sales volume exceeds € 0.5 million lei. The fee, however, is not applied to traders in villages, except those that are part of towns and cities.
According to the European Commission, the EU commission for payment by card costs the traders over 10 billion Euros per year. These fees are not very clear card for users, being different from one member state to another, as they are not fixed by the EU law but by the national authorities in the field of competition. Merchants are charged for each card transaction, adding costs to the prices of goods or services they sell.
This spring the European Parliament approved a decision for limitation of fees for card payments and security of online payments. Thus, the fees service or for the “interchange” applied by the european banks to process transactions in Visa and MasterCard type schemes could be limited to 0.3% of the transaction value for credit cards and 7 cents or 0, 2% of the transaction value (the lower) for debit cards.
These limits could applied both for domestic payments and the over the EU border and could take effect one year after the entry into force of new regulations. Over time, lower commissions might turn in lower prices for card holders.