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Petrol bunks say no to debit, credit cards
Vehicle owners who want to swipe debit or credit cards at petrol bunks across the state are in for disappointment as bunk owners have decided not to accept the plastic currency and would shift to cash only mode of operations.
IN PROTEST AGAINST SERVICE CHARGE
Hyderabad: Vehicle owners who want to swipe debit or credit cards at petrol bunks across the state are in for disappointment as bunk owners have decided not to accept the plastic currency and would shift to cash only mode of operations.
The move comes as a protest against banks which have decided to levy one per cent service fee on every transaction done through their machines. The bunk owners feel that they are already reeling under falling profits and insufficient margins and hence cannot take additional burden of service charge, according to the Indian Petroleum Dealers’ Association.
ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank sent notices to the dealers on Saturday night to inform them about the surcharge. ICICI and HDFC Banks account for some 60% of card swipe machines deployed at 52,000 petrol pumps out of the 53,842 public sector fuel retail outlets across the country. There are altogether 56,190 petrol pumps in the country, including those run by private oil companies.
According to Telangana Petrol Bunk Dealers’ Association president Dinesh Reddy, the transaction fee by banks will wipe out their profit. He claimed that the net profit, after deducting all operational costs, stands at 0.3% to 0.5%. If the banks straight away levy a 1% transaction fee, their profits would further go down.
If one per cent service tax is levied, they would be losing about Rs 2000 per day and it was not possible for them to bear such a burden. President of the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers’ A D Satyanarayana said: “We will not be able to withstand the financial burden generated by these transactions.”
The decision of petrol bunks to stop accepting plastic money comes at a time when the Centre wants to push cashless transactions. Satyanarayana said the All India Petroleum Dealers’ Association had already written a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley explaining the problems they have been facing in settling the accounts. If the Union government intervenes and makes the banks withdraw their decision, they would again start accepting the cards.
