National Bank of Serbia finds international card scheme fees rose 28% to EUR 142m in 2024 while average merchant fees fell to 0.97% in-store and 1.06% online

The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) published an analysis of bank-reported costs paid to card schemes and contracted merchant fees, collected to monitor the effects of the Law on Interchange Fees and Special Business Rules for Payment Transactions Based on Payment Cards. In 2024, banks’ total costs to international card schemes amounted to EUR 142m, up 28% from 2023, while costs under the national DinaCard scheme were EUR 2.7m, up 0.08%; the NBS notes these costs are passed on to banking service users through card usage fees, account maintenance fees, or other charges. The number of point-of-sale transactions with all cards rose 22% versus end-2023 and turnover increased 25%, while average merchant fees for domestic transactions continued to decline to 0.97% at physical points of sale and 1.06% online. On relative cost burden, the NBS highlights that an international scheme with about 34% of market turnover generated more than 56% of banks’ total scheme costs, whereas DinaCard generated 1.9% of costs with a similar turnover share; it also estimates that if DinaCard transactions over 2020–2024 had instead been executed through the most common international schemes, banks’ costs would have been higher by over EUR 223m. The NBS adds that cooperation with Discover Financial Services and UnionPay International has enabled DinaCard co-branded issuance for use abroad, with over 1,700,000 such cards issued.