As of the middle of next year, banks are going to be obliged to draw up a list of fees for each type of retail payment account and upload the resulting Terms and Conditions to a comparative data base. The Ministry of Finance has released a draft of the relevant Government Decree for social consultation.

Thanks to these standardized Terms and Conditions, the payment accounts offered by various banks will become more transparent and comparable for retail customers. The draft Decree stipulates that banks upload these data also to a central financial supervisory data base. This will enable customers to compare certain fees (e.g. for transfer abroad or bank card fee) at various banks.

The fact that banks will be obliged to send to the customer an annual summary of fees regarding every financial service used each year will also improve transparency. Customers who will thus know precisely what banking fees they pay can make a well-founded decision whether to continue to use a certain financial service or to possibly change the service provider. In that case they can opt for a simplified switching of the bank account.

Better comparability and transparency concerning payment accounts is expected to fuel competition between banks.

The Decree has been prepared in line with the EU’s directive on payment accounts (Directive 2014/92/EU — comparable and transparent fees and rules for all payment accounts and payment account switching). The Decree is scheduled to become effective as of 31 July 2018 after social consultation has been completed and Government approval has been obtained.

(Ministry of Finance)