Businesses break the law by charging extra credit card fees – Gonsalves

Businesses break the law when they increase their charges for customers who pay for purchases using debit or credit cards.

Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves, speaking at a St Vincent and the Grenadines Chamber of Industry and Commerce (SVGCIC) luncheon at Beachcombers on January 25, told the gathering that this practice is illegal, and the Government will be looking into it in 2018.

The Minister said this practice has a lot to do with the process of educating not only consumers, but business owners as well.

“There are one or two instances where I personally have been charged fees that are not legal. They are being charged for a variety of reasons,” said Gonsalves.

He said when he enquired, a proprietor explained that they are trying to recoup the bank charges that are usually associated with a business accepting a debit or credit card payment.

“These are discussions that we have to have this year. Again, I come back to the point that we are not different from any other consumer in any other country, so if you can use your card in Grenada, St Lucia, Antigua and Barbados, you are supposed to be able to use it in SVG in the same way and same number of places,” said the Finance Minister.

Gonsalves said more must be done to make this country friendlier from a banking standpoint, as SVG is the most cash dependent nation in the Caribbean, except for one country.

He said this country has the least number of Automatic Teller Machines (ATM), Point of Sale (POS) units and the lowest ebb of e-commerce and electronic business transactions.

“There is nothing peculiar to St Vincent and the Grenadines why we are lagging behind in these critical measures. In fact, as a multi-island state, we should be more ahead of the curve in using e-banking and e-purchasing and taking a piece of plastic out of our pocket and using it at stores here and there,” said Gonsalves.

He said that as tourism grows and tourists are warned not to travel with cash, we have to be ready to take advantage of this.(LC)