OREANDA-NEWS. Starting from 1 January 2011, SEB will be reducing the fees it charges for foreign settlements and the processing of coins and will be offering merchants advantageous terms to launch or extend card payments, reported the press-centre of SEB.

SEB will be reducing the fee on depositing coins from 5% to just 1.5% of the total amount, with a minimum fee of EUR 1.60. In doing so, the bank is seeking to reduce any price pressure which may result from the increase in the proportion of coins in circulation with the changeover to the euro. The new price will apply to both private and corporate clients. In addition, coins deposited at branches in amounts up to the value of EUR 15 will incur no fee if clients use the self-service coin-counting machines.

Based on the experience of Latvia, whose currency makes greater use of coins, 5–7% of the cash deposited by merchants in Estonia with the adoption of the single currency will comprise coins. Taking into consideration the fact that merchants have not normally deposited kroon coins with the bank, the fee for processing euro coins will be an additional amount they need to cover.

“Experience in the Eurozone has shown that card payments increase by almost 10% upon the introduction of the single currency,” explained SEB’s Head of Retail Banking and Technology Eerika Vaikmae-Koit. “So in connection with the likelihood that the same will occur in Estonia, the structure of merchants’ transactions will change, too, and the proportion of cash transactions will almost certainly fall to below 50%. That’s why the bank is offering companies not only lower fees on coin processing, but also the chance to themselves start offering card payments, or expand their existing card payment options, at no extra cost, until 1 March 2011.”

Cheaper euro payments within the EU
Also starting from 1 January, ordinary payments within the European Economic Area which do not exceed EUR 50,000 can be carried out at the same price as domestic payments. From the new year, an ordinary foreign payment of up to EUR 50,000 made to a Member State of the European Economic Area through economic channels will cost just 6 kroons instead of the current 30 kroons. Foreign payments of up to EUR 50,000 received from the European Economic Area will no longer be subject to fees from 1 January. (To date, such payments have been subject to a fee of 90 kroons.) “The idea behind balancing things up on our price list is to make it possible for our private clients and companies to carry out their banking in euros within the European Union just as affordably, and securely, as they can today with their domestic payments,” Vaikmae-Koit said.

The Member States of the European Economic Area are the 27 Member States of the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.