Taoiseach urges businesses to seek bank charge check

Small enterprises and farmers who feel they are being overcharged by banks moving them from chequebooks to business debit cards should bring their case to the Credit Review Office, the Taoiseach has said.

Enda Kenny said the Central Bank should also give it some focus. He was responding to Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice, who claimed banks were engaging in a "con job" and robbing small enterprises and farmers by moving them from cheque books to business debit cards.

Mr Fitzmaurice said one person who had contacted him had lost €2,800 in a month by accepting the card.

“This is a scandalous situation,” he said. “Cheques cost about 70c each but the business card cost 1.5 per cent of the total transaction and up to 2 per cent if used over the phone. People are being lured in by this new great card they are being given. The people who have accepted them are being robbed by the banks with what is going on.”

He called on the Taoiseach to “make it very clear to businesses while this con job is going on around the country . . . that people are told to continue using their chequebook”.

Mr Kenny said the Roscommon-South Leitrim TD had made a valid point but he said debit cards were “an invitation to continue debiting and clearly there are charges and a cost for that”.

He added: “I suggest this is an issue that should receive some focus from the Credit Review Office and from the Central Bank, which regulates the banking system”.

Costs of about €1,000

Mr Fitzmaurice said a person could spend €10,000 in a mart on five or six animals, pay for a meal at a merchant’s or be in the process of building a house with costs of up to €60,000 at the local hardware business.

He said the merchant or hardware business supplying the materials “would pay back to the bank approximately €1,000 of the money they took in because they accepted this card”.

He said the problem had arisen in the last two months where banks told their customers: “‘We are moving from cheque books and we are going to give you this card.’”

He said: “Businesses accepted those cards in good faith, believing there would be the normal charge.” He said there was “a duty on us to encourage people to continue to use their chequebooks until this mess is sorted out”.

But the Taoiseach said that “whether we like it or not, we are moving towards a situation where electronic payments become more and more prevalent, and we see them everywhere now”.