SEVERAL major financial institutions including Public Bank and CIMB have made announcements regarding the waiver of the merchant discount rate (MDR) for vendors utilising the DuitNow QR code platform.
CIMB has chosen to postpone the MDR until the end of the year, while Public Bank has declared that the waiver will be maintained until further notice.
Effective from Oct 1st until further notice, Public Bank has communicated via its website that it will waive various fees for QR payment acceptance. Under the bank’s Enterprise Plan, merchants will enjoy fee waivers for payment acceptance via current and savings accounts, e-wallets, maintenance fee and API Integration Fee.
However, credit card transactions under the Enterprise Plan will incur a charge of 0.25%.
The DuitNow QR service established by Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) under Bank Negara’s Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework, facilitates money transfers between banks and non-bank entities by scanning QR codes.
PayNet recently confirmed that starting on Nov 1 vendors will be charged a transaction fee for payments received via the DuitNow QR code platform.
This fee includes the MDR and RM0.50 fees for transactions exceeding RM5,000 for peer-to-peer fund transfers between personal QR codes, excluding payments to merchants. Merchants will receive payments from their customers after deducting the MDR, which is charged based on a percentage of the transaction value.
Debit and credit card payments will be subject to MDR, with the current MDR waiver for QR payments set to be lifted on Nov 1.
“As an incentive to promote usage during the introduction of QR payments in 2019, the MDR was waived. This was extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” PayNet clarified. – Sept 29, 2023
