Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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54. To ask the Minister for Finance his views on an issue raised in communications received (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4720/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The question appears to relate to incentivising the use of debit cards and specifically to the charges paid by retailers to acquirers when accepting payment by debit card.

In Budget 2016, I introduced measures to support retailers by reducing costs and incentivising electronic payments.  I announced that the fixed stamp duty charge on debit/cash machine cards would be abolished and replaced with a 12c per transaction charge for withdrawing cash from an ATM, capped at an annual maximum of €2.50 or €5, depending on card type. Since 1 January 2016 there is no stamp duty charge for debit card transactions.

In addition, I made changes to interchange fees faced by retailers accepting cards.  I announced that an EU regulation would halve the interchange fee charged to retailers to 30 basis points for credit cards and that I was halving the corresponding fee for domestic consumer debit cards to 10 basis points. These changes came into effect on 9 December last year and significantly reduce the costs of accepting card payments.  Combined, these reductions will save retailers an estimated €36 million a year in fees.

These interchange fees form part of the overall charges collected by acquirers from retailers.  An acquirer is a financial services company (e.g. a bank, bank subsidiary or payment institution) which manages the account and relationship between a retailer and the various card schemes. All acquirers in Ireland are independent commercial entities and I have no statutory role in relation to the charges applied by acquirers, other than setting caps on interchange fees as I have done.

Many retailers, particularly smaller retailers, could stand to benefit from shopping around for lower rates from acquirers for accepting cards.  The changes announced in the Budget speech present an opportunity for retailers to examine the rates they are paying so as to ensure they are getting the best rates.