The House plenum on Thursday passed a law closing loopholes that existed in the legislation to impose additional charges on consumers when paying with credit cards.
The bill clarifies that no one is exempt from the law and all businesses that impose additional charges when consumers pay with credit cards for their purchases will be reported.
The approval comes than a year after the Parliament approved a law proposal that designated the Consumer Protection Service of the Ministry of Commerce as the competent authority to receive complaints and supervise the market when the legal framework is violated.
The Service had realized there was a contradiction in the law allowing some businesses to interpret that in fact they are not prohibited from adding on a surcharge when accepting cards.
Businesses argue that their profit margin on smaller items is low and eaten up by the charges they incur by accepting cards as opposed to cash.
