Government steps in, petrol pumps will continue to accept cards for now

After threatening to stop accepting credit and debit card payments, petrol pump owners reversed their decision late on Sunday night. Pump owners had threatened to stop accepting cards as banks had decided to levy transaction fee of upto one per cent. However, after the Centre stepped in, pump owners decided to defer the decision by four to five days.

Earlier, fuel pump owners had decided to discontinue accepting plastic money from Monday to protest against HDFC Bank’s merchant discount rate (MDR) levy. “HDFC Bank has made the first move to charge MDR for every transaction made using plastic money,” said Ravi Shinde, president of Petrol Dealers’ Association.

“About 75 per cent of petroleum dealers have HDFC Bank’s Point of Sale (PoS) terminals. HDFC Bank has made the first move to charge MDR for every transaction made using plastic money,” said Ravi Shinde, president of Petrol Dealers’ Association.

“In line with the direction of ministry of finance, government of India, Central departments and central PSUs have to ensure that transaction fees / MDR charges associated with payment through digital means shall not be passed on to the consumers,” said a note from HDFC Bank.

“Our margins are fixed on a per-kilolitre basis and do not have any scope to absorb these charges. We have specific mechanisms to compute the margins and these do not have any scope for credit or debit card MDR. This will lead to financial losses for the dealers,” said AD Sathyanarayan, president of Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers (CIPD).