When, at the end of 2018, the implementation of the Law on Interbank Fees began, for the first time in Serbia the maximum amount of fees was limited, which, although charged between banks, practically included in the price of goods that everyone pays consumers. At that time, the law applied exclusively to cards issued by banks based in Serbia.
With the new draft of the law, the public hearing of which lasted until June 11, the limit of fees is extended to cards issued abroad, in situations where they are used to pay at points of sale in Serbia, or on local sales websites.
According to the law, the interbank fee for a debit card transaction in Serbia cannot be higher than 0,2 percent of the value of the transaction, nor higher than 0,3 percent for a credit card transaction.
Now these percentages also apply to cards that were issued abroad: When paying with a debit card (the one that takes money out of the account immediately), the fee is 0,2 percent of the transaction amount, and 0,3 percent when paying with a foreign credit card.
How much is paid with foreign cards in Serbia
According to NBS data, during 2025 in Serbia, 80,5 billion dinars were withdrawn from ATMs with foreign cards (those issued by banks and other issuers abroad), through 3,3 million transactions. At sales points, through POS terminals, in 2025, foreign cards were used to pay for goods and services with a total value of 211,26 billion dinars, through 59 million transactions.
Restriction for online payments as well
The law also introduces a restriction in the case when foreign cards are paid online, at the online point of sale of a domestic merchant, i.e. as defined in the regulation: payment without the physical presence of the cardholder at the merchant.
When paying with a foreign card on a domestic website, the commission can be a maximum of 1,15 percent of the transaction for debit cards, or 1,5 percent for foreign credit cards.
Lowering these fees will certainly be well received by banks that have equipped merchants with POS terminals for card payments - because it will cost them less. The question is how much such a decision will please foreign card issuers.
Disclosing the draft law, the NBS stated that in order to further improve the legal framework for the provision of payment services and business with payment cards, it prepared the Draft Amendments to the Law on Interbank Fees and Special Business Rules for Payment Transactions Based on Payment Cards.
"The proposed changes refer to the expansion of the scope of the law and to international payment transactions with payment cards in order to further improve transparency in the business with payment cards and lower the costs of accepting payment cards for merchants in accordance with the practice applied in the European Union," states the central bank.
What kind of fees are we talking about?
As previously explained by the NBS during the introduction of this law - these fees are paid by the accepting bank, which installs a POS terminal at the merchant, to the bank that issued the card, for each payment transaction made using the payment card.
"The receiving bank passes these fees on to the merchant and thus they directly affect the amount of the merchant fee that the merchant pays for the use of the POS terminal. The merchant then incorporates these fees into the price of goods and services and, in the end, all of us, the consumers, pay them - both those who pay with cards and those who pay in cash," the central bank explained the new law at the time.
Source: H1
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