CBSL: 2.5%–3% Card Payment Surcharges Illegal

⭕ 🇱🇰 CBSL says merchants cannot impose 2.5%–3% extra charges on debit or credit card payments, as merchant agreements with banks ban passing processing fees to customers.

⭕ Despite this, in reality most merchants, including several government institutions and local authorities such as pradeshiya sabhas, routinely add these surcharges. These are often described as a “convenience fee.”

⭕ CBSL advised customers to obtain a receipt and report extra charges to their issuing bank for reimbursement and investigation.

⭕ This suggestion is impractical because merchants can simply advertise higher prices and then offer a “5% discount” for cash payments.(this is the current practice) This practice indirectly penalizes customers who use cards more.

⭕ Even though CBSL talks big about digital payment adoption, its policies are often backward.

⭕ In early 2025, CBSL raised the MDR for LankaQR transactions from 0.5% to 1%, effectively doubling merchant costs.

⭕ CBSL insists merchants still cannot add the extra 0.5% or any surcharge to customer bills, but this is discouraging merchants from adopting digital payments because it costs them more.

⭕ Policies like this contradicts the government’s cashless policy. In 🇮🇳 India, early QR adoption was free, with costs covered by the government.

⭕ If the government genuinely wants to accelerate digital adoption, it could adopt a 0% MDR rate and bear the transaction cost initially. Within one to two years, the resulting increase in withholding tax and income tax collection from wider digital use could offset these costs.

#SriLanka #DigitalEconomy