No charge on credit card before activation: Bangladesh Bank

From now on, no charges or fees can be imposed on the customers before the activation of the credit cards, Bangladesh Bank said in a notice today.

The central bank also issued some other directives on the imposition of non-transaction charges against the credit card to ensure an effective payment ecosystem for the users.

The directives came as the banking regulator has observed that banks are imposing different types of non-transaction charges, including annual fees and SMS fees, on credit cards even before their activation.

As per the notice, no non-transactional fees can be imposed on the customer before activation of the credit card.

However, non-transactional charges can be imposed with the consent of the customer only after activation of a credit card.

Bangladesh Bank also said that if the credit card does not have any liability related to the transaction of the customer, no penalty other than a non-transactional fee or charge can be imposed due to late payment.

But under no circumstances interest or profit can be imposed on non-transactional fees, it said.

Besides, the customers cannot be classified for unpaid liability for non-transactional fees.

However, if the credit card transaction liability of the customer is not paid on time, the customer can be classified by following the loan classification and provisioning policy, it said.

The central bank in its notice also said that once the credit card bill is fully or partially collected, the non-transactional fees can be adjusted and the customer's transaction liability can be adjusted.

Steps should be taken to bring out the customers who have been classified for unpaid non-transactional fees before the issuance of today's notice.